A group of Presbyterians in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area on Tuesday cast the decisive votes that open ordination to openly gay men and lesbian clergy in the 2 million-member Presbyterian Church USA.
A regional church group called the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area became the 87th presbytery to approve the constitutional change to the denomination’s book of order, reaching the required majority vote among the denomination’s 173 presbyteries.
The Presbytery of South Louisiana, representing 61 Presbyterian USA churches, voted to approve gay ordination at a meeting in Baton Rouge last month.
Good news, indeed, however I was sorry to read the following news about the local Presbyterian church, which I did not know until now:
By one count, the drift caused an estimated 100 large Presbyterian churches to leave the denomination for more conservative Presbyterian bodies.
In Louisiana, for example, First Presbyterian churches of Baton Rouge and Thibodaux, as well as Woodland Presbyterian Church in Algiers, left for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which takes a traditional stand on sexuality.
If we had no Episcopal Church in my town, I'd thought I might attend the Presbyterian Church, but now, I don't know.
