Church votes for gay ministers

The Church of Scotland has voted in favour of allowing people in same sex civil partnerships to be appointed as ministers and deacons.

A motion at the General Assembly on the Mound in Edinburgh was passed by 309 votes in favour and 182 against.

Today’s outcome is the culmination of years of deliberation and turmoil within the church.

Some 31 of the denomination’s district presbyteries endorsed the move to 14 who opposed it.

Church of Scotland votes in favour of gay ministers

16 May 2015

The Church of Scotland has said the vote means it has adopted a position which maintains a “traditional view of marriage between a man and woman, but allows individual congregations to ‘opt out’ if they wish to appoint a minister or a deacon in a same sex civil partnership.”

Because the debate predates the legalisation of gay marriage the proposed change mentions only civil partnerships, not same-sex marriages.

Assembly will be asked on Thursday to consider amending today’s new church law to include ministers in same-sex marriages.

In a speech later today the outgoing Moderator Very Rev John Chalmers is expected to say: “There’s something else that we have to learn as a church and that is the power of harmony.

“Of course we need the freedom across the church to shape the life and worship of the church according to local needs and local gifts - and we have seen wonderful examples of this – from Soul Space at Johnstone High Parish to the Shed in Stornoway - but we cannot go on suffering the pain of internal attacks which are designed to undermine the work or the place of others. It’s time to play for the team.

“Let me be very clear here – I am not speaking to one side or another of the theological spectrum. I am speaking to both ends and middle.

“It is time to stop calling each other names, time to shun the idea that we should define ourselves by our differences and instead define ourselves by what we hold in common - our baptism into Christ, our dependence on God’s grace, our will to serve the poor and so on.”

Co-ordinator of the Principal Clerk’s office, Very Rev David Arnott, said: “The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland decided today to allow individual Kirk Sessions the possibility of allowing a Nominating Committee to consider an application from a minister living in a civil partnership.

“During a vacancy a Kirk Session may, but only if it so wishes, and after due deliberation, agree to a Nominating Committee accepting an application from such a minister.

“No Kirk Session may be coerced into doing so against its own wishes. This decision was in line with a majority of presbyteries who voted in favour of such a move.”