An Investigating Committee (IC) of the Presbytery of Cincinnati agreed that there was probable cause that I had committed the following offenses, as alleged by Mr. Paul Rolf Jensen, a member of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, California:

1. Acting in willful and deliberate violation of [my] ordination vows, as set forth in the Book of Order at section G-14.0405b, to be governed by our church’s polity.

2. Actually performed ceremony/ies at the Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, which ceremony/ies were in violation of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as so held by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in its decision in the case of Benton vs. Presbytery of Hudson River, Remedial Case #212-11;

3. Renouncing the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (USA) by refusing to comply with its constitution.

I disagreed that I had committed such offenses and shared at some length with the IC my disagreement with the present policies of our denomination regarding homosexual persons and our denomination’s apparent definition of what constitutes a marriage.

The response of the IC was to unanimously offer an Alternative Resolution for my consideration. They disagreed that I committed offense #3 above, but as to charges #1 and #2 asked that I agree to the following:

1. The Reverend Harold G. Porter will abide by G-14.0405b(5) to be governed by our church’s polity.

2. In the future, The Reverend Harold G. Porter shall not perform ceremonies on or off church property which are in violation of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) as so held by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in its decision in the case of Benton vs. Presbytery of Hudson River, Remedial Case #212-11.

After much thought, I agreed to these alternative considerations but under the following conditions:

1. As to the first resolution, I agreed that I will continue to uphold G-14.0405b (1) as long as it does not require me to discriminate unfairly against lesbians and gays or any other persons as equally created in the image of God. I do not believe that in fact our Constitution so discriminates. Such discrimination would be contrary to the whole meaning of the Constitution.

2. As to the second resolution, I agreed, but with the following provisions and understanding:

I believe that Benton vs. Presbytery of Hudson River ( 2) was wrongly decided because the decision was based on two false assumptions. The first false assumption is the General Assembly’s conclusion that all homosexual behavior is sinful. I believe that homosexuality is a feature of God’s creation that, like heterosexuality, may be used for God’s purposes. This assumption about the sinfulness of homosexuality remains merely a cultural bias not supported by fact or the Christian understanding of love.

Interpretive statements concerning ordained service by homosexual persons by the 190th General Assembly (1978) of The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the 119th General Assembly (1979) of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and all subsequent denominational affirmations of these interpretive statements, in fact embody a cultural bias and amount to an amendment of our confessions.

I believe it was unconstitutional for the General Assembly of 1993 to make an authoritative interpretation out of definitive guidance from 1978 that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. A conviction that a practice is sinful is not an interpretation of the Book of Order and is therefore not a proper subject for authoritative interpretation (G-2.0100b). Our confessions actually take no position on homosexual practice in and of itself. I believe that the authoritative interpretation of 1993 was in effect an attempt to treat a matter of faith and convictions as if it were a matter of government, worship, or discipline and thus to avoid the exacting amendment process necessary to change our confessional documents (G-2.0200, G-18.0200).

The second false assumption is Benton’s implication that it is the minister who determines whether or not a marriage has occurred. I recommitted myself to the polity of our church because I believe that, in our tradition, the couple creates, constitutes, declares, and consummates the marriage. Any declaration of marriage by the minister is not relevant and should not have been the pivot of Benton.

In practice, I will continue to advise and instruct all same-sex couples that the Presbyterian Church (USA) does not presently recognize the covenant between them as a Christian marriage.

Nonetheless, I recognize that the covenant between them is to live out their lives together as one family, in an enduring, unitive relationship, seeking a home for the heart’s happiness and a school for love. I will support and encourage such covenants so far as they reflect the Christian understanding of fidelity, mutual responsibility and love that should be present between couples, whether opposite- sex or same-sex.

I believe that under the Constitution (G-1.0307) I have the right to advocate that the Presbyterian Church (USA) change its teaching and policies on marriage and I will continue to do so. Specifically, I have the right to advocate on any occasion that whatever the church means and blesses as "marriage" should be extended to same-sex couples and that not to so extend it is both unjust and immoral.

I reserve my right to dissent from the implication of W-4.9004, if W-4.9004 implies that it is the declaration of a minister that joins two people in marriage. I reserve my right to maintain, rather, that it is the exchanged promises themselves that create the marriage. But I now realize that I cannot, upon the conclusion of such a service, declare in God’s name that any couple is married, as if my saying so sealed it. The minister and all those present are merely witnesses. It is the couple themselves, in their exchanged promises, who create and declare the marriage.

In the eyes of God, I believe, marriage is first of all a motion of the heart -- of two hearts in the congruency of love -- and that is what seals it. Indeed, our Confessions recognize this as in divorce, which is brought about when a "marriage dies at the heart" (WCF 6.137) or when the couple’s hearts are unequally yoked (I Corinthians 7:15). As stated in our Constitution, "Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the well being of the entire human family" (W-4.9001), and I believe that homosexual persons are part of the entire human family. I am not required to deny, nor will I deny, that such promises bring a marriage into existence, whether the couple is same-sex or other-sex.

I believe under the provisions of the Constitution (W-6.2001-2004, 6.3010, 6.3011), I may perform a worship service for the exchange of promises between couples, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, who wish to live out their lives together as one family, leaving the declaration of a marriage to the couple, not taking that declaration upon myself, but being among those who have witnessed it. In doing so, I will assure a same-sex couple that I (and the Session, if it has approved the ceremony) will extend to them all the resources for working out their discipleship that I/we make available to opposite-sex couples.

I further find the GA PJC in its Benton decision strained credibility when it offered that in a marriage service "a new status" is conferred while a same-sex ceremony only "blesses an existing relationship." I find this totally false and inconsistent with Benton’s advice regarding same-sex ceremonies that would be appropriate if conducted "in the form and spirit of W-6.3010 and W-6.3011." "The church recognizes transitions," for example, in which "people . . . make new commitments. The ministries of pastoral care support people . . . in working toward a new role in life and affirming their identity through transition." (W-6.3010). Certainly same-sex couples understand in their promises before God and the church that they bring something new into existence.

Henceforth, I will conduct only worship services for the exchange of promises between couples, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, who wish to live out their lives together as one family, without my declaring their relationship a marriage. In such services, I acknowledge that after all I am not performing a sacrament (our church does not recognize marriage as a sacrament) but only witnessing what the couples themselves affirm. Certainly in their hearts, they have every right to confirm that what they have embarked on as "a loving, caring, and committed relationship" (Benton) is a marriage, even if the church will not call it that.

The couple’s promises will be mutually made before God. For me to be involved in these services, I will have first discerned the presence of the couple’s "commitment, responsibility, maturity or Christian understanding" (W-4.9002b). The ceremony will also "be in the form and spirit of W-6.3010-11" of the Directory for Worship, as even Benton acknowledges (12.193). In doing so, I will certainly assure a same-sex couple that I (and the Session, if it has approved the ceremony) will extend to them all the resources for working out their discipleship that I/we make available to opposite-sex couples and to assure them "of God’s grace within their new relationship" (WCF 6.136). As a Minister of Word and Sacrament, believing I must share God’s grace with equity, this ceremony, as noted above, will be the same for all couples. (3)

Heterosexual couples seeking recognition of their marriage before the State will need to register their legal commitments with the State. Homosexual couples, until the State recognizes their marriages, will be advised to make every effort to secure the legal provisions that are available to protect the equity of their relationship and the mutual benefits they have invested in it.

With these understandings, the Investigating Committee approved the Alternative Resolutions and they were then approved by Cincinnati Presbytery’s Permanent Judicial Commission. The charges against me have thus been definitively resolved.

As I have outlined it, a worship service for the exchange of promises between couples, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, who wish to live out their lives together as one family, does not disregard the Constitution but uses it and applies it equally to same or opposite-sex couples. I find by agreeing to the alternative resolution my conscience is clear, for it is my resolve, which I will not be dissuaded from, to treat homosexual persons the same as heterosexuals in the church and in society.

This is also the purpose of the More Light Movement in the Presbyterian Church, even though the churches in this movement work out this goal with a variety of strategies. This movement is led primarily by gay members who, even as victims of their own church’s discrimination, love their church and are seeking to reform it from within. I wish to align my self with these, the primary victims, who seek to remain and reform our church.

Since 1991 I personally have been willing to stand trial for my actions that serve the full inclusion of homosexual persons in the life and ministry of the Presbyterian Church, and standing trial for that cause would be no cross to bear. But it is also clear in this specific matter that a permanent judicial commission cannot change the constitutional provision that marriage is between a man and a woman. Only legislative action by the whole church can change it, and we must work to that end.

Our Presbyterian Form of Government, which I both believe in and have promised to uphold, clearly spells out the necessity and tension between freedom of individual conscience and what has been determined as the essential tenets of Reformed faith and polity. As officers in our church, we acknowledge that the exercise of this freedom of conscience is within certain bounds which ultimately are determined by the governing body under which we serve (G-6.0108). We are not free to simply choose which part of the Constitution or which ordination promise we will or will not obey.

However, our treatment of homosexual persons is not a settled matter in our church. I believe that our Constitution as a whole fully welcomes such persons and does not state that their sexual behavior is intrinsically sinful.

Some persons believe that it does and therefore find that their conscience no longer allows them to serve in the Presbyterian Church. That may be my eventual decision should the Constitution ever be amended to rule that all homosexual behavior is sinful. But I do not believe that the Constitution presently does that. For me to now renounce the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church, given the concerns I have shared, might imply that I myself had a bad conscience. But I do not. Such a renunciation would not achieve the remedy that I, and I believe Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church and many other churches, seek.

Let me conclude with this witness: The Presbyterian Church (USA) needs to repent of its policies and statements that denigrate homosexual persons. I believe our present policies to be a scandal to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Further, the Presbyterian Church must declare that homosexual persons are equally made in the image of God and that they, no less than heterosexuals, are created for lives of joy, passion, and intimacy in sexual relationships. Whatever ethical standards regarding human sexuality that the church promotes should be the same for all persons regardless of their sexual orientation. Homosexual persons are no more prone to sin than heterosexual persons, as noted in two of the recent GA PJC decisions. (Wier 2 and San Joaquin)

Lastly, our denomination must ask forgiveness for the harm it has caused homosexual persons. "In affirming with the earliest Christians that Jesus is Lord, the Church confesses that he is its hope and that the Church, as Christ’s body, is bound to his authority and thus free to live in the lively, joyous reality of the grace of God." (G-l.0100d). I seek to live in that reality and by the norm of Christ’s love for all persons.

Harold Porter
Pastor Emeritus
Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church
Cincinnati, Ohio
April 19, 2003

# 1. G-14.0405b(5) reads: "Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?"

# 2. The Benton decision is based on the Authoritative Interpretation approved by the General Assembly of 199l: "There is no mention in the Book of Order of same sex unions (ceremonies). If a same sex ceremony were considered to be the equivalent of a marriage ceremony between two persons of the same sex, it would not be sanctioned under the Book of Order. In section W-4.9001, Christian marriage is specifically defined as:

[A] covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship. In a service of Christian marriage, a lifelong commitment is made by a woman and a man to each other, publicly witnessed and acknowledged by the community of faith. (emphasis added) Inasmuch as the session is responsible and accountable for determination of the appropriate use of the church building and facilities (G-10.0102n), it should not allow the use of the church facilities for a same-sex union ceremony that the session determines to be the same as a marriage ceremony. Likewise, since a Christian marriage performed in accordance with the Directory for Worship can only involve a covenant between a woman and a man, it would not be proper for a minister of the Word and Sacrament to perform a same-sex union ceremony that the minister determines to be the same as a marriage ceremony." (Minutes, 1991, Part I, pp. 55, 57, 395).

# 3. In the mixed history of marriage, we know that women did not receive equal value in society until they could marry freely and be guaranteed equity in their marital relationship. The same was true of ethnic and racial minorities. Until they were allowed to marry persons across ethnic and racial boundaries, their full civil rights were not recognized. Today, the only class of adults who are not permitted to marry the person they love are homosexual adults. This injustice both the church and the state must repair. Even if the state will not, the church with its concern for justice and its advocacy of love and fidelity in personal relationships must certainly recognize and bless the marriages of homosexual adults.