Mainline churches hold fast

in

rejection of homosexuals

By Darrell Holland

Religion Editor

No issue has raised the ecclesiastical blood pressure of religious institutions recently as much as 'that of homosexuality.

The United Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church. among the nation's most liberal churches, recently refused to grant recognition to homosexuals either as church members or as ministers.

The Presbyterian General Assembly, meeting in Baltimore, voted that it would be "injudicious, if not improper," to ordain homosexuals.

The church affirmed, in effect, that the practice of homosexuality is a sin.

But the Presbyterians voted to undertake a major study of homosexuality with particular reference to the ordination of avowed homosexuals as clergy. The meeting said the issue "raises new and perplexing problems for our church."

The United Methodist Church's General Conference, meeting in Portland, Ore., took an even more the conservative position on homosexual question, despite strong pressure from a gay caucus and many liberals who wanted the church to recognize, at least as church members, persons who prefer a homosexual life-style.

The Methodists refused to fi-

Methodists begin meeting on Monday

More than 1,900 United Methodist Church ministers and laymen will convene at Lakeside, near Sandusky, Monday to begin five days of deliberations on social issues and church policies.

Delegates will represent 920 churches from 12 districts into which the nearly 271,000-member East Ohio Conference is divided.

Bishop Francis E. Kearns of Canton, administrative and spiritual leader of the conference since 1964, will preside at his last meeting. He will retire Sept. 1.

Among the matters to be considered will be the church's witness in mission fields at home and abroad, establishment of a multimillion dollar budget and the election of persons to conference committees.

serve on

Religion

nance a study on sexuality and toughened its official position on homosexuality. The statement that the church did "not recommend" marriage between people of the same sex was changed to "not recognize."

The issue is more than academic for Methodist Bishop Edward Carroll of Boston. He is being sued by a former Boston pastor because Bishop Carroll fired the pastor for presiding at a marriage of two males.

Among the major denominations at the national level, only the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church have given some degree of acceptance to the ordination of homosexuals.

The Northern California Conference of the United Church of Christ ordained the first avowed gay to the ministry of an established denomination in 1972. No other gay has knowingly been ordained by the denomination and the gay minister has not been employed by any United church.

Late last year New York Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore Jr. ordained a woman who is an avowed lesbian as a deacon. She wants to become an Episcopal priest.

There is pressure from gays in the mainline denominations to accept them. In the Roman Catholic Church, gays have formed a group called Dignity, and in the Episcopal Church, there is a gay caucus called Integrity.

But Protestant and Catholic churches at all levels have been reluctant to accept homosexual leadership in their churches, or even to condone avowed gays as members.

Some estimates put the number of gays in this country at 20 million, and the gay caucuses argue that many of these are church members who have not publicly declared their homosexuality.

At least one church body, the Ohio Conference of the United Church of Christ, has shown a degree of openness toward homosexuality. It voted last week to call for at least the protection of civil rights of homosexuals.

But in a strange twist of logic, the conference refrained from asking its 550 churches to work, for the elimination of discriminaticn against gays that may exist within the churches' own structure.

A paragraph was deleted before the resolution was passed which would have, in effect, opened the door for avowed homosexuals to become members of the church. and of its ordained ministry.

Even the Ohio United Church conference, long noted for its liberal positions on many issues, could manage to get only the 600 delegates to vote to study the moral and theological implications of all sexual preferences, including homosexuality.

Meanwhile, gays continue their battle to win acceptance in the mainline churches and to practice their religious faith in those churches, while practicing their homosexuality.

Because of the rejections by the churches, however, many gays have formed their own denomination called the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.

There are about 20,000 members nationally in about 100 congregations.

The denomination has a mission

་

church in Cleveland which worships at 7:30 p.m. each Sunday at Bethany Presbyterian Church, 6415 Clinton Ave. NW.

The Rev. Dan Richmond, pastor of the gay congregation, said that homosexuals have organized the church because of the refusal of the mainline churches to accept them.

He said his congregation has about 30 members and that it has been in contact with about 3,000 gays in Greater Cleveland.

Despite the haunting words of St. Paul in the New Testament that "neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor homosexuals ... will inherit the kingdom of God," some gays contend that they are Christians who are called by God to worship Him.

They say they have formed their own churches simply because they are rejected elsewhere, and they believe churches are more fitting than homosexual bars.

It is likely to be a long battle before gays can abandon their own denomination and find places in the churches in which they were reared. Their denomination, in fact, has applied for membership in the National Council of Churches.

New moderator

The Rev. Rudy H. Thomas, pastor of Dover Congregational Church, Westlake, was elected moderator of the Ohio Conference of the United Church of Christ last week.

To speak here

The Rev. Earnest A. Smith of Washington, D.C., director of the human relations division of the United Methodist Church's Board of Church and Society, will preach at 10:45 a.m. tomorrow at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church, 3232 E. 128th St. He also will brief United Methodists on the church's social concerns at 4 p.m. today at Lakewood United Methodist Church, 15700 Detroit Ave.