PCUSA called 'out of step' Gay advocacy group says decision in Spahr case 'denies same-sex couples equal marriage rights' The Layman Online Tuesday, August 28, 2007 A gay-rights group is charging that a court ruling finding a minister guilty of violating church law for officiating at the weddings of two lesbian couples "denies same-sex couples equal marriage rights in the Presbyterian Church (USA)." More Light Presbyterians criticized the Aug. 24 ruling of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific in which, according to The Associated Press, it reversed a March 2006 decision by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of the Redwoods that the Rev. Jane Spahr "acted within her rights as an ordained minister when she married two lesbian couples in 2004 and 2005." Spahr, a self-proclaimed "lesbian evangelist," is the outgoing director of That All May Freely Serve which, like More Light Presbyterians, is among a handful of small, special-interest groups that have been lobbying for the denomination to end its historical and Biblical prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals as ministers, elders and deacons. The organizations also oppose the denomination's Biblical definition of marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman. In a posting titled "Is Not Love What Matters Most?" on the More Light Presbyterians' Web site, Michael Adee, the organization's national field organizer, said the denomination "took a step backward this week in a reversal of an earlier judicial decision that had ruled that the Rev. Janie Spahr had acted within her rights as a minister in performing marriage ceremonies of same-sex couples." Calling it a "landmark marriage equality case" in the PCUSA, Adee said that, "For a religious institution to cling to a binary view of gender is a failure of recognizing God's palette of creation. Our own hearts, human experience, the sciences and even our own spirits reveal to us that there is no simple notion of what is a man or a woman, or that love is limited to opposite-sex hearts only." He then criticized the denomination, saying that it is "out of step when it comes to recognizing and embracing all of God's good creation which includes God's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children and their families. God's good creation includes God's gift of sexuality and love which is not a possession of heterosexuals only." Saying that the Book of Order was "used to justify discrimination against LGBT Presbyterians" in the Spahr case, Adee said the Book of Order also "reminds us that 'councils may err.' The final word about God's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children was not spoken this week."

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