Hurray! The old Johannes is back in the house.
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January 30, 1999
Church Group Allows Same-Sex Unions
By The Associated Press
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A Presbyterian church group that represents 20,000 faithful in seven New York counties voted Saturday to allow ministers to perform same-sex holy unions that stop short of marriage.
''I think that God's tears are a lot less every time we affirm monogamy over promiscuity,'' said the Rev. Steve Geckeler, minister of the Presbyterian Church in White Plains. His church hosted the Presbytery of the Hudson River, comprised of ministers and lay members from 96 churches who approved the motion by a vote of 107 to 35.
However, ''a marriage is still understood as being between a man and a woman,'' said Geckeler, who has not himself performed any same-gender unions.
The Presbytery voted three months after a Presbytery committee began investigating the South Presbyterian Church in nearby Dobbs Ferry, which openly holds same-sex unions. The committee found the unions are allowed, but don't constitute marriage.
The national office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will likely consider whether the vote conforms to church law, said Fred Jenkins, associate stated clerk of the Protestant denomination's General Assembly in Louisville, Ky.
The 2.7 million-member denomination's Book of Order does not mention same-sex unions specifically, but church officials have recommended that ministers do not perform ceremonies that are the ''same as a marriage ceremony.''
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