Members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States have voted in formal recognition of gay marriage, allowing same-sex weddings.
Reports say the Presbytery of the Palisades in New Jersey cast the necessary 86th vote Tuesday night to establish that a majority of the church’s 171 regional presbyteries now support an amendment to the church constitution that redefines marriage
The Presbyterian Church has a 1.8-million-member, 10,000-congregation denomination, and is the largest Protestant group to formally approve same-sex weddings.
According to reports, an announcement on the Presbyterian Church’s website reads, “Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives,” the church’s Book of Order will read, effective June 21.
Gradye Parsons, the stated clerk of the church’s General Assembly, posted a video pledging that nothing in the amendment would compel those members who do not approve of same-sex marriage from participating in the weddings.
“The approval allows teaching elders wider discretion whose wedding they may conduct and sessions wider discretion whose weddings they may host,” Parsons said. “That discretion could include same gender marriages in states where that’s permitted.”
The Assembly approved the language last summer, but activists who have been pushing for the change for years had to sweat out the votes among the church’s districts.
“So many families headed by LGBTQ couples have been waiting for decades to enter this space created for their families within their church communities,” Rev. Robin White, a leader of More Light Presbyterians, told AP.
Meanwhile, 41 of the regional bodies have voted to disapprove the measure, according to AP. The church approved gay ordination in 2011 and 428 congregations had either left the fold or disbanded two years later, the outlet noted.
One conservative leader, Carmen Fowler LaBerge of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, called on Presbyterians to withhold donations from the national church unless the old marriage definition is reinstated, AP reported.
The new rules represent “an express repudiation of the Bible” and a positive vote for “what God does not bless,” LaBerge told AP.
But church leaders expressed hope that leaders from both sides would work together.
“As a church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has received much grace from God and Jesus Christ,” Parsons said. “We should extend that grace to each other in all gentleness as we live into this common chapter of our life.”
