Presbyterians Back Vote to Bar Gay Ministers

Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

Chaplain David Steele of Punahou School, Hawaii’s only voting delegate to the United Presbyterian Church governing assembly, says “the vast majority of Presbyterian folk felt it was necessary for the church” to oppose the ordination of homosexuals.

Steele said the historic policy statement last week undergirds the church position that homosexuals will not be ordained.

In an interview yesterday, he said “At the same time, the statement tried to point out that the problem of ‘homophobia’ is a major one in our culture and in the church and that we need to do much more in being accepting of gay folk.” 

(“Homophobia” is a coined word which means fear of or aversion toward homosexuals.)

The final decision is clear enough, he said. 

“We are not going to ordain homosexual folk, but we are not going to go after people who may have been ordained in the past and we’re not going to engage in any witch hunts.

“We are going to try to be loving and accepting toward the gay folk in our churches and in our midst.”

He said the Presbyterians, (the) first major Christian body to spell out policy on homosexuals, “supported civil rights for gays and encouraged members to work for a society which is more accepting of people.”

He said the motion leaves the church open to whatever “develops in the future,” but that he does not think the issue will surface again in the near future.

Steele said he ended up supporting the policy statement “because I felt that was what the church could live with.” 

He said he had hoped “we could be more open about it,” but that is where the church is at this time and “we have to live with it.”

He said two things are really significant with the Presbyterian Church today: The emphasis on mission programs rather than on building churches, and the question of how a denomination can handle diversity and discover unity amid such diversity.

Two other local Presbyterian ministers are pleased with the tone of the policy statement on homosexuality.