Church in New York extends call to openly gay man as interim minister The Layman Online Thursday, September 8, 2005 A church in New York has extended a call to an openly gay man to be its interim minister in defiance of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The 139-member Palisades Presbyterian Church in Palisades, N.Y., has extended a call to Ray Bagnuolo, who in the past has described himself as a "self-affirming, practicing, non-repentant homosexual." Bagnuolo is a national board member for That All May Freely Serve, a gay activist organization that describes itself as "working for ordination of qualified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender candidates in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as Elders, Deacons, and Ministers." Bagnuolo is an elder at South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., one of 16 congregations in the presbytery that have publicly declared their defiance of the "fidelity/chastity" ordination standard [G-6.0106b] in the PCUSA Constitution. Bagnuolo, who attended seminary in New York, also is a high school math teacher and is associated with GLSEN – Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network. In 2004, in an article titled "In a word, no!" he wrote that "I have long said that I am in favor of full, active, and engaged efforts to remove G-6.0106b at every turn, whether the odds are good or not." In a statement on its Web site, the organization said that it "extends its congratulations on the recent call of Ray Bagnuolo to Interim Minister at the Palisades Presbyterian Church in Palisades, New York. Ray, a TAMFS National Board Member, was certified to seek a call as an openly gay candidate early in 2004. He will begin his ministry at Palisades Church on October 1, 2005 if the way be clear at the Presbytery Meeting of the Presbytery of Hudson River on September 27. We are so grateful to the PNC of the Palisades Church and to the Presbytery of Hudson River for calling our friend and supporter." The Presbytery of Hudson River had certified Bagnuolo as a candidate for the ministry of Word and Sacrament during its meeting May 15, 2004, at White Plains Presbyterian Church in New York. The certification, according to the Book of Order, meant that he was "ready for examination for ordination, pending a call." Palisades Presbyterian Church, on its Web site, says, "Ours is an Inclusive Church," adding: "At the national level within the Presbyterian Church, the issue of gay and lesbian people serving as church officers has been a divisive one. PCUSA, our national church organization, has adopted some rather draconian and exclusive rules, but these have been pretty widely ignored by many (but not all) local churches. To our shame, many angry words have been exchanged, and later reported in newspapers such as the New York Times. "The Palisades Church does not have any sort of litmus test for church members or for church officers. We have only the expectation that a person genuinely desires to serve Christ and participate in the works of the Church. We do not exclude people on the basis of their sexual orientation, or for that matter, on the basis of race, sex or national origin. Any decision we make on whether a person should serve as a church officer is made by us alone, on our understanding of that individual's calling." In 1999, Palisades Presbyterian Church and 12 other New York churches established a "G-6.0106b-Free Zone" in defiance of the Presbyterian Church (USA) constitution, and invited other Presbyterian churches to join them to be "free from the polity morass of a self-contradictory Book of Order?" In a letter, the churches cited Christ Church in Burlington, Vt., for its "bold stand in articulating why, in good conscience, it cannot comply with G-6.0106b. We commend the session's statement to your reading, as it outlines very clearly how '… no congregation can be fully in compliance with a Book of Order that contradicts that paragraph [G-6.0106b] with numerous provisions mandating an inclusive church.' This is an example of faithful polity that both restores integrity to our denomination and dignifies the ministries of the lesbian, gay, and unmarried heterosexual members of our congregations, many of whom we have knowingly ordained as elders and deacons within the past several years and many of whom we intend to ordain in the future." The Presbytery of Hudson River long has been a center of defiance in the denomination, but moved into the limelight in 1999 when judicial action was brought against it for allowing its ministers to conduct same-gender blessing services. The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission ruled that ministers could conduct the services, called "holy unions," if they did not call the unions "marriages." Since then, some of its congregations have made public declarations that they conduct same-sex unions and recognize them as marriages, as well as practicing open communion, both in defiance of the constitution. In another case, the presbytery promoted by e-mail to its ministers a "Universal Worship Service" in which the participants offered prayers to a smorgasbord of gods – including those who, "whether known or unknown to the world, have held aloft the light of truth through the darkness of human ignorance."

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