 PCUSA to explore possibly providing benefits to partners in long-term committed relationships By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Thursday, July 1, 2004
The measure was referred to the Board of Pensions, which is to report back to the 217th General Assembly in 2006 – the same year that the Peace, Unity and Purity Task Force is scheduled to present its report. In the rational for the commissioner's resolution, it states that, "Stated Clerk [Clifton Kirkpatrick] on April 1, 1997, wrote to the members of the Legislature of the State of Hawaii, 'It is the conviction of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that both married couples and other couples in long-term relationships should have equal rights to hospital visitation, to making health-care choices for one another, to pension benefits, to holding property together, and to inheritance of one another's estate.'" The commissioners' action included a comment from the General Assembly Committee on Pensions, Foundations and PILP saying, "That the Board of Pensions review/deliberate the resolution in accordance with the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA)." Clarifying that the resolution referred to "long-term domestic partners," John McFayden, vice moderator of the committee, said the members of the committee "spent more than three hours discussing and considering the motion. … After defeating a number of motions to approve and disapprove with comment an amended motion, we did find common ground on the referral. The referral is neutral, carrying neither approval or disapproval." The Rev. George McIlrath, a minister/commissioner from the Presbytery of Tropical Florida said that an "almost identical resolution was defeated in 1999" and, to perfect the resolution on the floor, moved that the words "implementing the policy of the church" be replaced with "exploring the feasibility of." Commissioners approved the change. The Rev. Howard Boswell, a minister/commissioner from the Presbytery of Western New York who was a member of the committee, supported the resolution, saying that the "decision to refer represents the opinion of 80 percent of our committee. It merely asks the Board of Pensions to examine the feasibility of studying benefits for domestic partners." Howard Guffey, an elder/commissioner from the Presbytery of Shenandoah, disagreed. "It is a way of condoning a lifestyle that I don't support," he said, "and I don't think our church supports." In speaking in support of referring the resolution, Jessica Patchett, a Youth Advisory Delegate from Charlotte Presbytery, said the referral "is not about anything that we condone or condemn, but to refer the issue to the Board of Pensions to consider." AnneRose King, a Youth Advisory Delegate from Boston Presbytery, disagreed. "The wording is confusing and vague," she said, "and it would send a message that the church doesn't see a difference between couples." |
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