Gay Presbyterians fight on

Gays and lesbians are vowing to stay in the Presbyterian church despite a church decision yesterday to reject "Shortland St culture" and confirm the biblical rule against sex outside marriage.

The church's general assembly voted by 230-124 after an emotional debate in Auckland to bar people in extramarital relationships from training, licensing, ordination or induction into any leadership roles, including those of ministers and elders.

"We follow the Scriptures, not Shortland St. We follow Christ, not culture," a speaker from the Bay of Plenty told the 500-strong meeting.

A young Auckland speaker said: "I live among a generation that has grown up without the Gospel of Jesus Christ ... but here we are discussing whether we will obey what the Scriptures say or whether we are going to follow what Shortland St says."

The 65 per cent vote for the motion confirms that New Zealand's third-largest church, with more than 400,000 members, is becoming more conservative. Similar motions gained 54 per cent support in 1996, 59 per cent in 1998 and 63 per cent in 2004 - a vote which had to be confirmed this year to become church law.

Professor Peter Lineham of Massey University said the trend showed that "young people these days who choose to be Christian tend to choose rather more conservative varieties of Christianity than they used to".

But lesbian Wellington minister Dr Margaret Mayman said lesbian and gay Presbyterians would stay in the church and hope for better times.

"We have a long-term view of this issue. Many historic struggles for years have gone on for much longer than this issue has. Its day will come."

A 73-year-old homosexual retired minister in Te Aroha, Don Mence, said he would continue to take a weekly communion service at St Andrew's in Hamilton "because congregations like St Andrew's have said they will disregard this and not obey it".

The vote was a victory for the church's evangelical "Affirm" movement, founded in 1993 to promote "spiritual and theological renewal".

Co-chairman the Reverend Stuart Lange, a West Auckland minister and church history lecturer at the Bible College in Henderson, said that although gays and lesbians were welcome to attend church, "homosexual practice is consistently rejected by the Scriptures".

"Our God is not popular opinion or decadent Western society, but the God who made the universe. We believe that marriage is the pattern created by God, and that faithful and enduring marriage is a pattern that is good for our human welfare and for the good of society. We don't doubt that marriages fall short of the ideal, and that many extra-marital relationships are in many respects of excellent quality, but as Christians we are committed to marriage."

However, a Wellington minister who was once married with two daughters, the Rev Ross Scott, said he had tried marriage and had been unable to change his orientation.

"I would never put another woman through what I did to my wife. I would hate others to follow down that pathway," he said.

He is now in a civil union with a male partner.

CHURCHES ON SEX

* Gay ministers accepted: Methodists

* Gay ministers banned: Catholics, Presbyterians, Salvation Army, most Baptist churches

* Ambivalent: Anglicans (Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said last month homosexual activity was against Christian teaching, but gay ministers have been accepted in practice)