We received two thoughtful, critical comments, to which we have responded.

But here's a sampling of the many positive comments that have come in.

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This statement of policy makes me even prouder to be a member of Witherspoon!

Shirley Wooden

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Great statement. Go for it. Letty Owings

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Amen & Amen!

Charlie Webster

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Thank you to the Witherspoon Society for its executive committee's recent statement concerning issues of justice, inclusiveness, and ordination. As a gay Presbyterian and elder, I am moved by the respect your statement shows for the voices of LGBT folks in our mutual struggles and the respect for the alternative approaches advanced by different groups toward our common goal.

We LGBT folk within the PCUSA are blessed to have multiple supportive advocacy groups - Witherspoon, More Light Presbyterians, Covenant Network, Shower of Stoles, TAMFS, and Presbyterian Welcome, to name a few - in and through which our voices can and do get heard. Perhaps it takes such a diversity of groups, and more still, to echo the similarly diverse voices of LGBT in our church. Your executive committee rightly notes that it does not speak for LBGT folk as a whole - indeed, no single group or groups can make that claim; yet, cumulatively, our rainbow of different supportive groups and approaches enhances the likelihood that every LGBT voice will be represented.

Sincerely, Tim Cahn

He later added more comments:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your invitation, in response to my email praising Witherspoon's recent statement, for my thoughts concerning how GLBT voices can be heard, in the midst of these struggles. There are eloquent, prominent LBGT voices in our denomination - Janie Spahr, Katie Morrison, Lisa Larges, Don Stroud, Michael Adee, Martha J. - and others. I have been privileged to work with each of these individuals in one capacity or another over the last couple years. I have also worked closely with More Light Presbyterians, TAMFS, Covenant Network, and related groups.

But I sometimes wonder, where are the voices of rank-and-file GLBT people in the pews? To be sure, the struggles over ordination and gay marriage may discourage such pew folk from lifting their voices, out of fear of being identified and charged. But, I have to believe that there are pew GLBT Presbyterians out there who, like me, are willing to be visible and to be heard. ...

Once again, let me thank WS for its commitment to hearing our voices.

very truly yours, Tim Cahn

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Thank you for this statement.

One of my concerns is that the church also (or perhaps first) recognize publicly the legitimacy of the committed relationships of GLBT persons. Until that issue is addressed openly and such relationships affirmed, I don't see how the church will be able to address the question of ordination satisfactorily.

Rev. Marilyn K. Allen

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[9-24-03]

In response to a legitimate criticism from a friend on the conservative side of the Presbyterian Church, the Executive Committee of the Witherspoon Society, in our meeting last week in Albuquerque, voted to amend the wording of one sentence.

You may want to look at the full statement, or look at the amended paragraph below.

Here is our response to two critical notes, and the full text of the two notes.

A response to Deborah Milam Berkley and Jim Berkley

Dear friends -

Recently you have each sent comments on the policy on ordination that the Witherspoon Executive Committee recently posted here. We have also received another more vituperative condemnation, but that one was anonymous, and our policy is generally not to post such notes unless there are exceptional reasons. We have asked the author to identify him/herself, and have heard nothing back.

Both of you offer criticisms, but Deborah has raised one point which we have taken as a very legitimate and important one: that we have attributed "base motives" (her term) to those who oppose fully inclusive ordination. While that was not our intention, we see how our statement could be read in that way. There is tension enough among us Presbyterians without any of us adding more fuel to it, and that certainly is not our intention. Our hope is that with all our differences, we can yet deal with one another with some degree of respect.

Therefore at our recent Executive Committee meeting, we took some time to revise our statement. The offending paragraph now says (with the changed sentences in italics):

Finally, we believe one key role of the Witherspoon Society is to continue reminding the whole church of its wider mission, urging us to work through this particular alienation within our body, for the sake of a world that needs healing and justice. We shall continue to remind our church that ordination is not a matter of sexuality, but of God's gifts and calling. And we shall point out that the real effect of a continued ban on ordination for all those who are called is not "purity," but the continued assertion of power by one group over another - the power to define the being of another person, to exclude on the basis of that definition, and to force the community of God's people into a mold of one's own design. That is a fundamental injustice that has no place in the life of our church.

We thank Ms. Berkley for calling our attention to our own failure of respect, and we hope we have still made our point without impugning anyone's motives.

We invite you to read both of the Berkleys' notes. They are - each in its own way - instructive.

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