Amid disturbing reports from U.N. human rights officials and others that gay men are being targeted for elimination in Chechnya, top leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have issued a statement expressing “grave concern” for the LGBTQI community in that southern Russian republic.
“I felt that I could still be a Catholic priest,” Palacios said, “but I could not deal with that kind of scrutiny and command from the top.”
John Knox Presbytery has voted to ordain to the ministry Scott D. Anderson, a gay man who has been in a committed relationship for close to two decades, and who declared a conscientious objection to the requirement in the ordination standards of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that those being ordained practice “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.
Meeting in Madison, Wisc., on Feb. 20, John Knox voted 81-25 to ordain Anderson, who currently is executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. He previously worked as a pastor …