3-Year Study of Gays OKd by Church : Policies: Presbyterian General Assembly asks all churches to examine issues of homosexuality related to membership, ministry and ordination.

The Presbyterian General Assembly approved a three-year study of homosexuality and the church, creating an uneasy peace within the 2.8 million-member denomination while a ban on gay clergy stands.

Moments after commissioners to the 205th General Assembly voted 396 to 155 on Monday for the churchwide study, about 70 gay rights activists marched around the convention hall carrying a wooden cross and shouting, “The church is ours, you can’t shut us out.”

Lin Team, moderator of the Human Sexuality Committee that proposed the churchwide study, said Tuesday that approving it “at least acknowledges the fact that there is not consensus in the church, and it tries to facilitate mutual respect and mutual forbearance while a consensus is being reached.”

In its vote, the assembly asked all churches and regional presbyteries to examine issues of sexuality related to membership, ministry and ordination in the church. Church bodies were encouraged to allow homosexuals who have not made their sexuality public to participate in the study without fear of retribution.

But although the resolution recognized “the pain of our homosexual brothers and sisters,” it also affirmed as “authoritative” current church policy prohibiting homosexual clergy.

The United Church of Christ is the only major Christian denomination that permits homosexual clergy. In recent years, the United Methodist Church and Episcopal Church turned back proposals to allow openly gay clergy.

In the Presbyterian Church, the 1991 General Assembly affirmed past church statements declaring homosexuality “is not God’s wish for humanity.”

But controversy broke out again last year when the church’s highest court revoked the appointment of a lesbian minister to a congregation in Rochester, N.Y. More than 30 overtures asking the church to either strengthen or overturn the ban on gay clergy were presented to this year’s annual meeting.

In the debate over the study, many commissioners called for unity within the denomination. “Together we can hold the church as a model of reconciliation in a divided world,” Team said.

But some commissioners on both sides of the issue called on the church to take a definitive stand.

“This church has been studying this issue for 15 years. It’s time for us to have the courage . . . to say what the Presbyterian Church stands for,” said Julian Walthall of Alabama, a supporter of the ban on gay clergy.

Gay activists said that they would encourage homosexual Presbyterians to participate in the study but will continue in the meantime to lobby for ordination of gays.