Church Welcomes Its Gay Members : Religion: West Hollywood Presbyterian congregation serves as haven for gays amid dispute over their role in the denomination.

It is a tranquil Sunday morning inside the sanctuary of the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Old friends greet one another before services begin. A couple embrace; a mother quietly reads the Bible to her daughter. The scene is not unlike those at churches across the city.

Except for one thing. Nearly all of the 150 congregants packed into the wooden pews are gays and lesbians.

This is the front line of a sexual revolution in the Presbyterian church. At a time when the denomination’s leaders are mired in debate over the issue of homosexuality, this small congregation on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood has openly embraced gays and lesbians, and people with AIDS.

The Rev. Daniel E. Smith, the church’s pastor, is the person most responsible for guiding this small church over the past seven years. His work has often stood in direct contradiction to Presbyterian doctrine, which does not accept same-sex unions or allow the ordination of “self-affirming, practicing homosexuals” to the clergy. Smith, who is gay, was ordained in 1978, prior to rules prohibiting the ordination of homosexuals.

Although the General Assembly, the governing body of the 2.9-million-member church, has adopted resolutions welcoming gays and lesbians and calling for compassionate treatment for people with AIDS, it still views homosexual behavior as sinful.

Smith, 38, says he thinks the church should celebrate “the spiritual values that guide a relationship rather than dwelling on gender and marital status. I live for the day when it will be as spiritually unacceptable to speak against lesbians and gays as it is now to be fascist or racist.” That is the ethic that he tries to foster at his own church.

Smith’s ministry, unlike many churches today, is able to draw to the church increasing numbers of worshipers who had previously left, his supporters say. “This is the first church I’ve ever found that gives gays and lesbians an opportunity for spiritual growth,” said Maurice Maranville, who joined the congregation about six months ago. “It has the power to reconcile the gay and non-gay communities. That is why people want to come here.”

For example, Smith and a handful of congregants formed the HIV/AIDS ministry, a spiritual support group for people with AIDS. The program’s two dozen members meet twice a month to share their experiences. The group twice has conducted the church’s Sunday morning worship service.

The church also takes part in the Lazarus Project, a program run in conjunction with other local churches to help build understanding between the gay and heterosexual communities. Project leaders explore various themes about homosexuality--including its relationship to the Bible, the effects of prejudice and pastoral approaches to AIDS--with congregations and college classes throughout Southern California.

Members of the church’s jail ministry hold services each Sunday for about 200 gay inmates at the Los Angeles County men’s jail downtown. The ministry provides what may be the only ongoing religious contact for the inmates, who for their safety are kept in a separate facility from the rest of the jail population and are not permitted in the weekly worship services.

“There is no other church in the country that has gone as far as we have when it comes to the integration of sexuality and spirituality,” said the Rev. Lisa Bove, an associate pastor who now heads the HIV/AIDS ministry.

She feels that many churches turn their backs on people when they are in need.

“It is not right when ministries simply want to help people die when they have never helped them to live.”

Smith is equally outspoken. He was part of a 17-member task force that delivered a highly controversial report on sexuality at the assembly’s annual meeting in mid-June. The 200-page report, titled “Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spirituality and Social Justice,” questions the importance that Americans place on marriage, saying that premarital sex, homosexuality and bisexuality should be acceptable if the partners are responsible, caring and faithful.

The report also affirms masturbation and petting among teen-agers and says that maturity, not marriage, should determine when youths engage in intercourse. In addition, it says that homosexuals should be able to be ordained into the ministry, and that gay and lesbian couples should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Although the report was four years in the making, the General Assembly voted not to adopt it as a study document. But it has generated enough attention to sell more than 42,000 copies; study documents typically sell about 2,000 copies.

Critics insist that to adopt the report would open the church to moral and sexual anarchy. They contend that, beyond pushing the limits of Christian moral teaching about sex, liberalization represents a test to the very authority of the Scriptures.

“The report is totally flawed,” said the Rev. Jerry Tankersley, pastor of Laguna Beach Presbyterian Church. “It pulls the carpet out from under our understanding of sexual ethics. As Christians, we are called on to base our conclusions on scriptural authority. The report is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.”

Smith and other liberal members of the clergy insist that the report reflects a demanding ethical standard. It draws on the two biblical themes of justice and love, its authors say, asking whether relationships are “responsible, genuinely mutual and full of joyful caring.”

Smith is frustrated by the Assembly’s reluctance to examine the report. “For the past two decades, the church has been dealing piecemeal with issues of sexuality,” he said. “Now that we have a premiere document that addresses everything, the church doesn’t want to study it. When is there an appropriate time to do justice?”

But Smith is confident about the future of gays and lesbians in the church. The fact that congregations around the world are now studying the task force’s report is proof that issues involving homosexuality are gaining acceptance within the church, he said.

“Fifty years from now, these are the issues that the mainstream will be dealing with,” he said. “I have absolute faith that the church will change. It’s only a matter of time.”