Presbyterians Decry Proposal for Church to Bless Teen-Age, Gay Sex : Religion: Half the regional bodies urge rejection of plan to approve intercourse that is ‘responsible’ and ‘caring.’

With an unparalleled outcry, half of the regional bodies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have urged the denomination’s annual convention to reject a revolutionary proposal on sexuality that has shaken the normally placid church, making its approval unlikely.

Many Presbyterians do not even want the proposal studied further, fearing that they would be perceived as the first mainline Christian denomination to look favorably upon such things as unmarried couples living together and homosexual relationships.

By Tuesday, 86 presbyteries out of 171 had registered negative reactions, especially to the recommended blessing of “responsible . . . joyful caring” intercourse outside of marriage for teen-agers and homosexuals.

“There is not a positive (resolution) in the bunch,” said Marj Carpenter, public relations director for the 2.9-million-member denomination. Presbyterian leaders said the number of pre-convention resolutions, called “overtures,” from the regional bodies had never been so high.

Some officials say that the more than 600 commissioners at the 203rd General Assembly June 4-12 in Baltimore will be under great pressure to scrap the 200-page majority report on sexuality that was three years in the making. A dissenting report defending traditional ethics, by six members of the 17-member committee, could form the basis for continued study.

Many presbyteries, such as one in Seattle, urged that the committee be disbanded for disturbing “the peace, unity and purity of the church” and that the national convention reaffirm that “the only appropriate context for . . . sexual intimacy” is marriage between one man and one woman.

The committee majority “appears to have listened to the voice of secular culture more than the voice of sacred Scripture,” said the Rev. Jack Loo, executive pastor of the Hollywood First Presbyterian Church.

The Presbyterian Church has been known for relatively progressive stances on social issues, but Carpenter said that the current opposition cuts across liberal and conservative lines.

Radical changes in sexual ethics have been opposed by eight former General Assembly moderators, the official who presides over the annual convention, then acts as a roving denominational spokesman for a year. “Three are very conservative and five are kind of liberal,” Carpenter said.

“The report is doomed in its present form,” said Newport Beach Pastor John A. Huffman Jr., who is running for moderator this year as an opponent of the proposal.

“I hope this assembly will extract some of the strong and healthy statements against rape, sexual abuse, pornography, clergy misconduct and the maligning of women and homosexuals,” said Huffman, pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. “But we need to send a clear signal to the world that we do not dare (condone) what the Bible says is sin.”

The Rev. James E. Andrews, the top administrator of the denomination, has warned that scrapping the report would raise the danger of creating more hostility toward gays and lesbians. “I think we must avoid that at all costs,” he said.

Andrews, however, would not predict a quick demise for the study at the convention. “Presbyterians are very stubborn folk. You can reason with them but you can’t browbeat them.”

The committee’s chairman, John J. Carey, who teaches Bible and religion at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, said the proposal is based on an ethical principle called “justice-love.” “At its simplest,” Carey said, the proposal “draws on two great Bible themes--God’s justice and God’s love.”

Nevertheless, many Presbyterians angered by the report readily quote justice-love sections for ammunition. For example:

“Although heterosexual marriage is rightly valued by many people as a place to secure loving and justice-bearing intimacy relations, it is not the exclusive locus for responsible sexuality.”

“(Justice-love) applies to single, as well as to married persons, to gay, lesbian and bisexual persons, as well as to heterosexual persons. . . . Rather than inquiring whether sexual activity is premarital, marital or postmarital, we should be asking whether the relation is responsible, the dynamics genuinely mutual and the loving full of joyful caring.”

Committee members have denied claims that the proposal condones adultery. “There must be commitment to fidelity in our relationships,” said the Rev. Robert Fernandez, who heads the San Fernando Presbytery.

Despite Fernandez’s defense of the document, the San Fernando Presbytery, which covers the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles County cities north of the San Fernando Valley, urged that the proposal be rejected.

Most presbyteries in Southern California have not taken action on the proposal. The deadline for submitting resolutions has passed. Nevertheless, Bel Air Presbyterian Church has asked the Pacific Presbytery meeting Tuesday to oppose the report and convey its sentiments to the annual convention. Likewise, the study is expected to be an issue at presbytery meetings Saturday in Cambria and Laguna Beach.