Retired seminary leader tells pro-gay group to focus on relationships, not the law By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, November 5, 2004 CHICAGO – Dr. Jack Stotts, the retired president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, told a Covenant Network audience Friday that the issue of the ordination of practicing homosexuals in the Presbyterian Church (USA) needs to focus on relationships and not the moral teaching of the Bible. In what at times resembled a political post-mortem on the presidential election, which was held two days before the Covenant Network Conference convened Nov. 4, Stotts noted that the denomination and the nation are divided on the homosexual issue and that advocates for homosexual causes will have to emphasize relationships rather than law. More than 600 people signed up for the conference, which was held at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, where the Covenant Network was organized in 1997 to begin what has become a seven-year campaign to convince the denomination that it should ordain practicing homosexuals. During the course of that campaign, there have been three national referendums on the issue, with nearly 75 percent of the presbyteries voting in 2001 – the highest margin yet – to affirm the ban on ordaining candidates for office who are sexually active outside the boundaries of traditional marriage. After a sometimes whimsical review of America's sexual revolution in the past 50 years, Stotts contrasted what he described as two models for Biblical interpretation of the creation story: law versus relationships. Quoting the oft-repeated phrase that seems to be the theme of the conference, "In the beginning was the relationship," Stotts said moral law evolves as relationships change. "If you begin with relationship, the law is open to change," he said. "If you begin with law, the relationship is not open to change." He appealed to Calvin as one authority: "It is like Calvin's third use of the law. It is for guidance, but it is flexible. It's the old question of the law and the gospel." But Stotts did not propose an "Anything Goes" attitude, as was the title of a Cole Porter musical hit. He dismissed that notion with a series of off-putting comments about today's sexual mores: Noting that condoms used to be sold under the counter by pharmacists or service stations "for the prevention of disease only," he said they now occupy prominent space even in grocery stores. "They even have an aisle, under the title 'lifestyle,'" he said. "The amazing thing is that the clerk doesn't even avoid your eyes." "In 1947, The New York Times refused to advertise a study on male sexuality known as the Kinsey Report." Ironically, he added, the Times recently published a book review honoring Kinsey. At Purdue University, a sign was spotted hanging from the window of a female student: "All we want is love and all we get is sex." He quoted Karl Barth: "We no longer have a bad conscience about sex, but we don't have a good one either." "Who remembers the score of the Super Bowl?" he asked. "Who remembers Janet Jackson baring her breast?" Another university sign: "Free condoms, 2-4 p.m.. AIDS kills." Another New York Times story – about teen-agers "hooking up" for sex. One girl told the Times: "It's equal, everybody is using each other." The TV series, Sex in the City. "I don't care what they do," Stott joked, "as long as they don't care and as long as they don't do it in the streets and scare the horses." Contrary to the 11 states that approved constitutional amendments defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, language that is similar to the Constitution of the PCUSA, Stotts said the "central meaning of marriage may be filia – friendship – and oneness is a process." Whether heterosexual or homosexual, he said, "a right relationship does complicate matters. To be an inclusive church, it complicates our relationships. We have to admit that we depend on someone else. But from the beginning, there was the relationship." During a question-answer-period, Stotts was asked several times to comment on the presidential election as a corollary to the debate over homosexuality in the PCUSA. "We thought we were doing a good thing because we were getting him (President George W. Bush) out of the state," Stotts said. "The radical right, the conservative right, they were brilliant. I don't agree with any of them, but they feed a huge hunger for clarity. "We're not sure we give clear signals," he added. "Well, we've got to give some clarity. In a sense, we have to reorganize the importance of putting together two things: simplicity and complexity. But there's a point at which you simply say, for example, 'Killing's wrong.' "It is very important to start with the relationship," he said. "That means many arguments about ordination are arguments about the poverty of relationships."

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