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Presbyterians bend on gay ordination

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., June 20 (UPI) -- The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA approved a resolution Tuesday that would allow regional bodies to ordain homosexuals as ministers.

The assembly met in Birmingham, Ala.

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The compromise proposal passed 298-221. It upholds the church's traditional standards for ordination, while allowing more leeway in applying them to individual candidates, the Presbyterian News Service said.

Many delegates hoped that the vote would put an end to decades of debate on the issue. Marj Carpenter of Big Spring, Texas, an elder and former moderator of the General Assembly, said she remains opposed to homosexual ordination.

"But we've been fighting in this ditch for 28 years and ditch is getting deeper," she said. "It's starting to affect our mission work, our youth ministry and our evangelism and I'm ready to try something else."

The assembly rejected by overwhelming margins proposals to change a requirement in the church's Book of Order that officers be either in a faithful marriage or living in single chastity.

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