GRAMMATICAL SINS?: The weekly message on a...

GRAMMATICAL SINS?: The weekly message on a church sign in the west San Fernando Valley has had misspellings twice in the last two weeks.

The suggestion last week (from a congregation that shall remain unidentified) was that “Children Need There Parents in Church.” It was corrected by Wednesday to read, “Children Need Their Parents in Church.”

This week, the message was, “If Your Not a Sinner, Bring One Who Is.” By late Thursday, the sign facing a road well-traveled in both directions had not been fixed to read you’re instead of your.

PRESBYTERIAN TALLY: With more than half of the regional units of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) reporting, a proposed amendment to the denomination’s constitution to prohibit the marriage-like blessing of gay and lesbian unions by Presbyterian clergy was headed for failure.

Forty presbyteries, including the San Fernando Presbytery based in Panorama City, voted in favor of it; 38 have opposed it, including the Pacific Presbytery, based in Los Angeles’ Westside. The San Fernando Presbytery voted on the proposal in January.

In order to pass, according to the Office of the General Assembly in Louisville, Ky., the amendment must receive affirmative votes from 86 of the 171 presbyteries. But 11 regional units have already said they will take no vote, which increases the odds that the amendment will fail to get the majority it needs.

“If this pattern of voting continues, the amendment will fail because it has received a plurality, but not a majority, of affirmative votes,” said the Rev. Fred Jenkins, an official at the Presbyterian headquarters.

Some church officials have said that the amendment was unnecessary because denominational policy, adopted in 1991, holds that “it would not be proper for a minister to perform a same-sex ceremony that the minister determines to be the same as a marriage ceremony.”

BISHOP ELABORATES: New Los Angeles Bishop Paul W. Egertson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who disclosed in January that he had performed two same-gender unions as pastor of a North Hollywood church, has told fellow bishops that he knows the distinction between being a bishop and acting as a minister to gay and lesbian people.

Egertson’s response, in a closed session with bishops during their meeting in Newport Beach March 2-7, was reported in an ELCA news release from the denomination’s Chicago headquarters.

“Actions appropriate in one context are not in another,” the bishop told a writer with the denomination’s news office.

The ELCA bishops’ meeting was generally open but included a closed session to discuss news reports about Egertson’s blessing of two unions at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, which has had a 10-year ministry to gays and lesbians and authorized such ceremonies in 1990.

According to ELCA sources, the frank discussion included observations that a 1993 bishops’ statement against same-gender unions was advice, not church policy.

REFORM ZIONISTS: The prospects for peace in the Middle East and for Reform Judaism’s legitimacy in Israel will be discussed at the eighth national assembly of the Assn. of Reform Zionists of America, to be held April 7-10 at the Warner Center Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills.

Two members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, are expected to give opposing views in separate talks April 9 on whether the Golan Heights area should be returned to Syria in peace negotiations. They are Ran Cohen of the Meretz Coalition and retired Brig. Gen. Avigdor Kahalani.

On April 8, Nimrod Barkan, minister for public affairs in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Knesset member Benny Temkin will also speak to the assembly.

The struggle by Reform and Conservative Judaism to gain religious rights in Israel has often been thwarted by the combination of Orthodox Judaism’s dominance of religious life and political alliances between secular parties and ultraconservative religious parties.

“The Assn. of Reform Zionists is committed to the building of a strong Israel Reform movement and the pursuit of religious rights in the Jewish state,” said Marcia Cayne of Woodland Hills, president of the 60,000-member organization.

More information is available from the regional office of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, a Reform organization, at (213) 653-9962.

CATHOLIC SPEAKER: Joan Vienna, director of the Family Life Office of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, will speak about the challenges facing divorced and separated Catholics at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Holy Family Church, 200 E. Elk Ave., Glendale.

The talk is part of the parish’s series of Lenten talks. For more information, call the church at (818) 956-1369.