Bid for gay clergy defeated by Presbyterians

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In a major setback for liberal Presbyterians, the nation’s largest Presbyterian church on Feb. 19 soundly defeated a move to allow noncelibate gay clergy in church pulpits.

The five-year-old ban in the Presbyterian Church (USA) was upheld by a majority of the church’s 173 regional bodies, called presbyteries. The amendment to the church’s constitution, easily passed by delegates to last summer’s General Assembly meeting, would have removed language that requires clergy to live “in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.”

It also would have deleted a 1978 provision that prohibits the ordination of “self-affirming practicing homosexuals.”