Like the UMC, Presbyterian Church (USA) Haggles Over Lesbian Pastor's Status
by Jim Brown
April 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is commending an attorney for filing disciplinary charges against an openly homosexual female minister in California.
In the span of two years, Paul Rolf Jensen has filed more than 20 cases against Presbyterian ministers and elders, charging them with violating their ordination vows by ordaining or marrying homosexuals. However, only one case was actually tried. Most recently, he filed a case against Berkeley minister Ann Petker, who wed her lesbian partner and also conducted a "marriage" service for another lesbian couple.
Pastor Parker T. Williamson heads the Presbyterian Lay Committee. He says he is glad Jensen has been taking action because the denomination's Book of Order bars the ordination of individuals who engage in extramarital sex.
"The constitution is clear, and secondly, the offenses are clear, because these persons whom Mr. Jenson has accused are persons who have flat out admitted, 'Look I'm doing this,'" Williamson says. "There's no question about the facts here."
Williamson says it is unfortunate that the leadership of the PC(USA) is refusing to enforce church law in this area of sexuality. He anticipates that, as has happened within other mainline denominations in recent years, there will be another challenge to traditional marriage at the PC(USA)'s General Assembly in June.
"The strategy of the denomination's leadership appears to be, let's just don't enforce these standards until we can finally get them out of the constitution," he says. "So there will be an attempt to get them out of the constitution again this year in Richmond."
Among the charges against Petker is "practicing the sin of homosexuality without repentance." Petker, an evangelist with the homosexual advocacy group That All May Serve, was ordained in 1993. She began her employment with that group in October 2000 after announcing her lesbianism to her congregation in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
