Churches Grapple With Homosexuality

Two of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations continue to grapple with controversies involving homosexuality.

The social action agency of the United Methodist Church announced this month that it is calling upon the Boy Scouts of America to change its policy of excluding gays from participating in the organization.

The church would like to encourage a “continuing partnership” with Scouting, but “we cannot, due to the Boy Scouts of America’s discrimination against gays,” the board stated. “This discrimination conflicts with our church’s social principles.”

But at the same time, the Commission on United Methodist Men is supporting the Boy Scouts in an appeal of a court ruling that banned discrimination against openly gay Scout leaders. The Scouts should be allowed to “select and recruit leadership in accordance with their guidelines and principles,” the church’s commission said. The Scouts are appealing a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that forbade discrimination against gays.

Meanwhile, a regional judicial commission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has ruled against upholding the ordination of homosexuals by two Presbyterian churches in New England.

The two cases were considered tests of how the church would interpret a hotly debated constitutional provision that prohibits sexual relationships between unmarried church officers.

The commission ordered the Presbytery of Northern New England to require that Christ Church Presbyterian Church of Burlington, Vt., comply with the constitution.

The body also required the First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, Conn., to reexamine an openly gay elder’s suitability for service.

The United Methodist Church is the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the seventh-largest.