... por aqui ainda vai demorar alguns "33 anos" prá acontecer.
Joserrí de Oliveira Lucena
Presbyterians
Approve Ordination of Gay People
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published:
May 10, 2011
After 33 years of debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has
voted to change its constitution and allow openly gay people in same-sex
relationships to be ordained as ministers, elders and deacons.
The outcome is a reversal from only two years ago, when a majority
of the church’s regions, known as presbyterys, voted against ordaining openly
gay candidates.
This time, 19 of the church’s 173 presbyterys switched their votes
from no to yes in recent months. The Twin Cities presbytery, which covers
Minneapolis and St. Paul, cast the deciding vote at its meeting on Tuesday. The
vote was 205 to 56, with 3 abstentions.
Cynthia Bolbach, moderator of the church’s General Assembly, its
highest legislative body, said in a phone interview from Minneapolis after the
vote: “Everyone was civil. There was no applause, no cheering. It was just
reflective of the fact that we are moving forward one other step.”
Although by the time the vote was taken in Minneapolis the outcome
was expected, Presbyterian church officials said that even a few months ago
they would not have predicted that the church was ready to change its policy.
“All of us are surprised,” said the Rev. Gradye Parsons, the
church’s stated clerk, its highest elected official. He attributed the
turnabout in the votes to both the growing acceptance of homosexuality in the
larger culture, and to church members simply wearying of the conflict.
“We’ve been having this conversation for 33 years, and some people
are ready to get to the other side of this decision,” he said. “Some people are
going to celebrate this day because they’ve worked for it for a long time, and
some people will mourn this day because they think it’s a totally different
understanding of Scripture than they have.”
“I hope that going forward we can stay together and be faithful
witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) now joins a growing bloc of
historic, mainline Protestant churches that have voted to accept gay clergy
members and church leaders — a bloc that includes the United Church of Christ,
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church. (The
largest mainline Protestant denomination, the United Methodist Church, is still
fighting over the issue).
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has about two million members.
The Presbyterian Church in America, a much smaller and more conservative
denomination, prohibits the ordination of women and openly gay candidates.
Longtime advocates of gay equality in the Presbyterian Church
savored the day. The Rev. Heidi Vardeman, senior minister of Macalaster
Plymouth United Church in St. Paul and a spokeswoman for a pro-gay church group
called More Light Presbyterians, said in an interview, “Finally, the
denomination has seen the error of its ways and it will repent, which means,
literally, to turn around.
“I’ve had young people who have been exemplary, obviously good
candidates for the ministry,” she said, “but then you have to have this weird
conversation in which you say that, umm, because they might be gay or lesbian,
it’s not going to work. But now we’re free! We can endorse and propose and
assist and elect those whom God has called.”
In the next few months, the denomination will gauge the reaction from
its more theologically conservative members, who believe that ordaining
sexually active gay people is inconsistent with the Bible. Some have already
departed. The Presbyterian News Service estimates that approximately 100
congregations have left the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the last five
years. Several were large congregations, which could help explain why the vote
in some presbyterys switched from 2009.
Paul Detterman, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal,
an alliance of conservative Presbyterians, said: “We see this as a bit of a
crisis of conscience for us. The book that we hold up as holy is saying one
thing, and now the church is behaving differently.”
However, he said groups like his were not planning to separate
from the denomination, but to push to create some kind of a formal entity
within the Presbyterian Church for conservatives. It could be a nongeographical
presbytery or a fellowship, he said. “We need to have some kind of an
identity,” he said.
He said he did not think the homosexuality issue was resolved
because gay advocates are likely to try to pass an amendment at the church’s
next General Assembly in 2012 calling for the church to bless same-sex marriages and unions.
The change approved on Tuesday does not mean that presbyterys must
ordain gay candidates — only that they may. The wording leaves the decision
open to local presbyterys, according to church officials. It says that
governing bodies that consider candidates “shall be guided by Scripture and the
confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.”
The measure changes the church’s constitution by removing a 1997
amendment that said that those ordained were required to live in “either in
fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman” or in
“chastity in singleness.”
Fonte: The New York Times
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário