A proposal that would allow gays to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been defeated, but the issue won't die anytime soon.
That's the sentiment expressed at a gathering of conservative Presbyterians, members of the 400,000-strong Confessing Church Movement, who are opposed to "Amendment A," the controversial proposal that would have allowed gay ministers and elders within the church.
The group has been in Atlanta this week at the Georgia International Convention Center for a three-day conference. It ends today. At the convention, members applauded the defeat of Amendment A.
"Scriptures are pretty clear about who should fill the pulpit," says Christina Hogg, 43, a delegate from New Orleans. "For us to waver on that and say it's OK to put people in there who aren't chaste and who are homosexual would be going against what scripture says."
To be ordained under the Presbyterian Church's (U.S.A.) current policy, a person must be living "either within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman" or chaste.
A majority of the denomination's 173 presbyteries ---72.2 percent --- have voted against Amendment A.
The Confessing Church Movement helped lead the fight against the proposal. Members believe that the Bible is infallible and marriage between a man and a woman is the only appropriate sexual relationship.
The Rev. Gibson Stroupe, a supporter of Amendment A and pastor of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, says the defeat creates two classes of members within the Presbyterian Church.
"I don't think we need any more second-class members," he says. "We had that when women were members and they couldn't be ordained and we had that with African-Americans when they couldn't be ordained."
Stroupe says opponents of Amendment A who cite the Bible often ignore other Biblical passages.
"If the issue is scripture, then slavery is permitted," Stroupe says. "If the issue is scripture, then divorced people shouldn't be ordained. That's not to say that scriptures aren't important but that there are agendas that we all bring to scriptures."
And The Rev. J. Perry Wootten, pastor of Eastchester Presbyterian Church in the Bronx, N.Y., says the defeat of the proposal won't silence its supporters.
"They are going to pursue it no matter what," Wootten says. "They have been trounced over and over but they refuse to say, well, maybe the church has greater wisdom than I do."