And, btw, I am going to mention this in my sermon on Sunday and post it on my own blog, in the context of Lazarus and Dives who was much too distracted to pay attention to the poor at his gate. I wonder if the Church is so conveniently distracted by arguing over the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians who actually want to serve the church - imagine that! - that we neglect to see Lazaurus at our gate or the 6 million beloved children of God who will die of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV on our very watch. While we are obsessing about sex, the poor are at our gate just as they were at Dives gate and he not no time for them. Yet, we have the capacity to be endlessly distracted by lesser matters, what precisely other than death, will cause us to pay attention?

NSCR, what can I say. I feel your pain, though I cannot know what it’s really like. It would be relatively low-risk for me to answer The Question in such a way, because I honestly don’t think there would be severe repercussions.

I suspect, however, that the issue will be moot—methinks the powers that be are doing their darnedest to stop these shenanigans from taking place on the floor of presbytery.

No one called the questioner out of order.

Why didn’t I?

I could not, because I was an intern at the church where the meeting was being held, a candidate under care of Dinky Presbytery (2000 miles away) at the time, and therefor had neither voice nor vote.

She passed, by the way. But I found the whole evening to be humiliating, and it wasn’t even about me.

Meanwhile, across the street, the board of trustees of the seminary was busy defending it’s hiring (and nervously scrambling to find ways of avoiding the firing) of the then-president, a sexual predator.

That is f’d up.

So…I guess that’s one more supposedly progressive Presbytery I can check off my list of possible places to seek a call next time around. (sigh).

I suppose I could muster up the various arguments why, though I’m not currently in a relationship and therefor not technically out of compliance, I should make it through. But I’ll admit I just don’t have the stomach for that kind of hair-splitting anymore. Besides, I haven’t “repented” of my prior relationships, I simply regret they did not work out. Does that mean I’m NOT in compliance? Who knows? And does kissing constitute a violation? Does, um, getting to third base?

Regardless…the whole thing makes me tired beyond belief. As you say, there are far more productive things for us to be doing, but more and more I realize that I don’t get to set the agenda in the church. So be it.

Best I can now determine, the actions of the last general assembly, though thought to have opened the door for local option, have accomplished exactly NOTHING, other than driving some far-right churches from the denomination. The only interpretations of the provision by church courts have held that the “scruple” can only be declared as to belief, not as to conduct…so I can believe that my capacity to love fully and intimately is as honorable as anyone else’s in God’s eyes, so long as I don’t act on it.

And people wonder why there are fewer and fewer lgbt clergy coming through the system…It’s because we are so inhospitable. Why be a part of this tradition when the UCC is MORE than welcoming, at least up in this neck of the woods? I find it utterly defeating that someone would ask these kinds of questions in a public forum that smells oddly of inquisition. It makes it no less reprehensible that everyone is asked the question…RM perhaps you will remember that in our former Presbytery, the CPM switched the order of examinations the day I was up for certification so that they could say that I wasn’t the first person they ever asked if s/he was in compliance with G-6.016(b).

Still, in reality, some are merely inconvenienced, embarrassed and (rightly) incensed by the question. For others it is a terrifying prospect, where there is no stake and there is no public burning, but a calling can never the less be immolated.

Four years ago this past summer, I sat across a casual dinner table from a Presbytery executive in a Presbytery that will remain nameless and was asked to outline, specifically, my sexual history since my ordination as a deacon some 8 years before. I tried not to be aghast; I tried to be civil; I refused to answer. Four years on, I fear that my patience has not deepened, my pastoral center has not given me overarching compassion for one caught in such a place that he would think those questions appropriate. I fear that today, my response would be career ending. So be it.