Scripture at heart of gay marriage battle

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - A recent vote by Maryland Presbyterians to ask the larger church to permit same-sex marriage speaks to the age-old — and often sundering — question of how literal scripture interpretation must be in order to be sound, parties in the controversy said.

“My read of this is that this language would only permit it in states where such marriages are already permitted. I don’t think it endorses it [overall],” the Rev. Peter Nord, executive director of the Presbytery of Baltimore, said of his group’s 76-71 vote petitioning the governing General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to allow same-sex marriage.

Nord said that proponents of the action believe that the theology of marriage has evolved throughout the Old and New Testaments and that it is reasonable to assume that an all-good God would approve of committed same-sex marriages.

Agreeing that it was an interpretive matter, Nord however, added, “I don’t believe that you can find a scriptural statement that affirms same-sex marriage.”

A regional ruling body for Presbyterianism’s largest branch in the United States, the Presbytery of Baltimore represents nine counties and the city of Baltimore.

In its “overture” to the national church, it may, however, have unleashed an interpretative controversy similar to that currently wracking the Episcopal Church.

“The Bible teaches several things about marriage, and it doesn’t talk about homosexual marriage,” said the Rev. Steven Carter, pastor of Christ Memorial Presbyterian Church in Columbia, who opposes the overture and deplores how the issue has sapped attention from more pressing inner-city concerns. “It talks about marriage as being between a man and a woman, and it talks about homosexual practice as being [one kind of] sin.”

“They take generalities,” Carter said of measure proponents. “Like they say that God is love so therefore everything that professes to be love is therefore of God … The problem is, if you say that, then anything that somebody claims to be love, nobody else has a right to say that that isn’t love — no matter what extremes you go to.”

Even if approved, the same-sex marriage measure must then be passed by a majority of the church’s 174 presbyteries, and both sides see that as unlikely.

“I can’t imagine the majority of the presbyteries supporting this,” Nord said, adding, “I think that this is deeply painful for some of my people and I’m pained for their pain. But I think this also provides hope and sustenance to others.”

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