Church vote spotlights same-sex unions

On Saturday, Tampa Bay area Presbyterians will vote on an amendment to outlaw the unions. It's an issue many Protestant denominations have struggled with.

By SHARON TUBBS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 22, 2001

In a decision that will help shape church policy nationwide, Presbyterians in the Tampa Bay area will vote Saturday on a measure forbidding same-sex unions.

If passed nationally, the proposal, "Amendment O," would prevent church officials from participating in such ceremonies. It would also outlaw marking same-sex unions on church property.

Amendment O has divided the church in this area as well as nationally. About 15 members of an ecumenical group called Soulforce, which supports same-sex unions, will hand out literature and hold up a banner outside Forest Hills Presbyterian Church in Tampa, where the Presbytery of Tampa Bay will meet Saturday.

Local clergy also will weigh in, using varying interpretations of the Bible to back up their positions.

Harold Brockus, pastor of Good Samaritan Church in Pinellas Park, has performed same-sex unions since 1988. If Jesus Christ so deplored homosexuality, Brockus contends, why didn't he say anything about it in the New Testament?

"The thing that's really at issue here is what kind of church are we?" Brockus said. "Are we a church based on the grace of God and the love of Christ, or are we a church of rules?"

William Martin, pastor of Northeast Presbyterian Church in St. Petersburg, says the Bible denounces homosexuality in both the Old and New Testaments.

"We just hope that the presbytery will realize that voting for Amendment O is very important to the future of our church," Martin said. "The church needs to take a stand. Is what God said final? Is (God's word) authoritative?"

Presbyterian doctrine already forbids same-sex marriage. But some ministers have been performing what they call same-sex "holy unions," in which gay couples say vows and profess their love before a minister, family and friends. The unions are not recognized as marriages by the state of Florida.

After learning that Brockus performs the unions, Martin filed a complaint against Brockus' church with the regional presbytery. The dispute eventually made its way to the denomination's national General Assembly in the form of a resolution that asked for a ban on same-sex unions, Martin said.

Presbyteries in North Carolina and California sent similar resolutions to the national governing body. Last summer the General Assembly decided that regional presbyteries should vote on the matter.

Nationwide, 173 presbyteries are conducting regional votes. According to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Web site, 65 had voted as of this week. Twenty-four want to ban same-sex unions; 41 don't. All votes are expected to be in by the General Assembly's meeting in June. For the amendment to pass, a majority of presbyteries, 87, must approve it.

Brockus said he believes the Tampa Bay area presbytery will approve the ban.

"This is a conservative area," he said.

The wording of the measure would affect more than homosexual unions, Brockus said. As he reads it, the amendment says the church should not partake in ceremonies that approve of couples who aren't married. That would prevent pastors from baptizing the child of an unmarried live-in couple, for instance, Brockus said.

"It's very sweeping," he said.

Martin says the amendment is not intended to prohibit anything other than same-sex unions.

"The amendment will prohibit and disallow what it says it will prohibit and disallow," Martin says. "We're not trying to put in all kinds of secret prohibitions."

Protestant churches have struggled with gay relationships for decades.

The United Methodist Church, for example, has created a number of "social principles" concerning homosexuality. One speaks of "equal rights regardless of sexual orientation."

And, in 1996, the 8.4-million member denomination issued a resolution saying homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. Armed Forces. And yet the church outlaws same-sex unions and dismissed one minister who performed them. Homosexuals who openly express their lifestyle cannot be ordained Methodist ministers.

For at least 20 years, the Southern Baptist Convention has denounced everything from government funding for homosexual education to decisions by corporations to grant benefits to the domestic partners of gays and lesbians.

"We prayerfully affirm those individual business leaders and businesses that either resist pressures to recognize the moral equivalence of domestic partnerships, or that work to reverse policies that erase fundamental and morally critical distinctions between homosexual relationships and heterosexual marriage," one resolution says.

Near the end of most of their proclamations, the Southern Baptists, with more than 15.8-million members, generally include a passage about God's love and forgiveness.

"The forgiveness of and freedom from sin . . . by Jesus Christ includes forgiveness of and freedom from homosexuality," one document says. "Be it further resolved, that we publicly denounce and deplore all violent attacks upon homosexuals, and that we express our abhorrence of the teaching that God hates any person on account of an immoral lifestyle."

The matter is not so clear within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In 1993, the church's Conference of Bishops issued a statement saying it does not approve of same-sex unions. The group has no legislative power.

While the suspicion lingered that homosexual unions were being performed in ELCA churches, there was little discussion at national meetings, said John Brooks, director of news and information for the ELCA.

Then, last year, two synods -- in Milwaukee and Detroit -- issued statements saying they would allow same-sex unions, contrary to the bishops' advice.

The issue probably will be discussed at a national meeting this year, Brooks said.

"We're kind of in a quandary, I guess," Brooks said.

Last year, the Episcopal Church passed a sweeping statement supporting relationships "outside of marriage" that are either gay or straight. The statement did not mention same-sex unions directly. But it was the church's first major showing of support for relationships other than marriage.

Times researcher Caryn Baird and Times files contributed to this story.

Amendment O:

"Scripture and our Confessions teach that God's intention for all people is to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or in chastity in singleness. Church property shall not be used for, and church officers shall not take part in, conducting any ceremony or event that pronounces blessing or gives approval of the church or invokes the blessing of God upon any relationship that is inconsistent with God's intention as expressed in the preceding sentence."

If you go:

The Presbytery of Tampa Bay will vote on the amendment and conduct other business during a regional meeting beginning at 8:50 a.m. Saturday at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church, 709 W Linebaugh Ave., Tampa.

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