Two complaints challenging lesbian’s ordination dismissed The Layman Volume 35, Number 3 Posted June 3, 2002 Without hearing the facts in the case, a church court dismissed two complaints charging that the Presbytery of Redwoods was wrong to ordain the Rev. Kathleen Morrison, a lesbian who says she is in a sexually active relationship. The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific said in a May 17 order that the complaints failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted because they did not specify when Morrison self-acknowledged the practice of homosexuality. Morrison is a national representative for More Light Churches, an organization that wants the Presbyterian Church (USA) to ordain homosexuals, lesbians, people who have changed their sex and people who have sex with both males and females. The two complaints, one by the Presbytery of San Joaquin, asked the synod court to declare that Redwoods Presbytery had acted irregularly when it approved Morrison for ordination. The complaints did not call for disciplinary action against Morrison or commissioners to presbytery. The synod court rationalized its decision by appealing to a order written by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the denomination, in a recent Florida case called Weir v. Session. But the synod court did not quote a section from Weir that holds governing bodies responsible for asking about candidates’ character: “If the governing body has reasonable cause for inquiry based on its knowledge of the life and character of the candidate, it has the positive obligation to make due inquiry and uphold all the standards for ordination and installation.” Morrison made no secret of the fact that she is a lesbian. She stated that in a denomination publication and the secular media. A former co-chair of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, Morrison also self-disclosed her lesbian orientation to the Redwoods Committee on the Preparation for the Ministry, but the committee declined to investigate further. Although the case against Redwoods Presbytery is remedial in nature, the synod court treated it as a disciplinary case against Morrison and quoted from Weir a section that applies to disciplinary actions: “When a complaint alleges violation of a constitutional standard that may have extreme consequences to a person’s reputation, career, or friendships, a greater degree of pleading specificity is required. A complaint making such allegations must assert factual allegations of how, when, where, and under what circumstances the person was self-acknowledging a practice which the Confessions call a sin.”

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