Gay Marriage At Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Voted Down

"It's become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long," Anderson wrote Sullivan, "I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something -- something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true."

I've chatted with Anderson Cooper over the past few years, mostly at the gym, sometimes passing on gay-related stories I've focused on, mostly about homophobia experienced by young LGBT people. I've also appeared on AC 360. I've found him to be dedicated and sincere in his focus on gay issues, particularly as they relate to young people. I'm sure it's been tough for him -- being sincere to the issues he's concerned about but keeping mum about this part of himself, seeming insincere to those very same young people he cared about. There are those who are saying it's "no big deal," or "so what?" or "who cares?" or just offering a big yawn. But, in this time of intense bullying in schools and too many reports of teen suicides, they just don't get how important it is for young gay people to know every single person in the public eye who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

And the glass closet -- those closets of people like Anderson, who have been known of and thought of as gay, but have not said it -- can perhaps be even more damaging than closets that are less transparent. A mother of a gay son who called my radio program yesterday explained that she was so ecstatic that Cooper was now out because her young son certainly was able to glean, like many others, that Anderson was gay, but also gleaned that he was likely afraid of being open. And that, she said, was a bad message for her son. But seeing Anderson out and proud, she said, tells her son that there is nothing to fear.

Members of the nation's largest Presbyterian denomination on Friday voted against a proposal that would have created a path to same-sex marriage ceremonies in the church.

After more than three hours of debate at the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s biennial General Assembly in Pittsburgh, voters struck down a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage, 338-308; no voters abstained.

The proposal would have changed the church's Book of Order to define marriage as between "two people." It would have required approval by a majority of the church's 173 presbyteries, or regional governing bodies, in order to become final.

Following Friday's vote, the church will keep its definition of marriage as being a union between "a man and a woman."

"God, we are a divided church," said the Rev. Neal Presa, a New Jersey pastor and the General Assembly moderator, while guiding church members in prayer after the vote. Presa asked God for guidance through "the messiness and beauty of it all."

The decision at the General Assembly, which is made up of pastors and lay people, means that pro-same sex marriage activists must wait two years until the church's next national meeting to make marriage-related proposals.

But the climate for a same-sex marriage vote could be on the activists' side in the future. During deliberations and several votes on different versions of marriage proposals on Thursday, younger members of the church expressed support for same-sex marriage much more strongly than the church's older members. Church surveys also show an increasingly pro-same-sex marriage stance as the younger Presbyterians gain more leadership positions.

In the short term, the vote also means that many conservative congregations threatening to leave the denomination likely will stay. The 1.9-million member church, which had more than 2.1 million members two years ago, has quickly lost congregations and individual members in part because of its increasingly liberal views on homosexuality. According to the Presbyterian News Service, at least 100 congregations have defected in recent years.

While all Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations are affiliated on a national level, individual congregations differ widely on matters such as worship style and views on issues such as homosexuality. More liberal pastors have been known to publicly or privately officiate same-sex marriage ceremonies, but they have risked censure.

There are several smaller Presbyterian denominations, such as Presbyterian Church in America and Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians, which lean more conservative and do not ordain gay people or official same-sex marriages.

 U.S. Democratic Representative Barney Frank wed his longtime partner, James Ready, on Saturday, becoming the first sitting congressman to enter into a same-sex marriage.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick officiated the ceremony and added some levity by saying Frank, 72, and Ready, 42, had vowed to love each other through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, and even through appearances on Fox News, according to Al Green, a Democratic congressman from Texas.

"Barney was beaming," said Green, who attended the ceremony. He added that Frank, a champion of gay rights and the sweeping reform of Wall Street, shed a tear during the ceremony.

After exchanging their vows, Frank and Ready embraced each other, Green said. "It was no different than any other wedding I've attended when you have two people who are in love with each other," Green said.

Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and a former chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, has been an openly gay congressman since the late 1980s.

He is well known for his legislative acumen, including as an architect of the reforms in the Dodd-Frank bill, which U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis following the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market.

Frank's office in January announced he would marry Ready, whom he met at a political fundraiser in Ready's home state of Maine. Ready lives in Ogunquit, where he does carpentry, painting and welding work. Frank and Ready have been involved since 2007.

The evening wedding took place at the Boston Marriott Newton in suburban Boston, attracting political luminaries including Nancy Pelosi, top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Niki Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democratic representative.

Before the ceremony, Frank greeted family and friends in a traditional black tuxedo. He was tanned and appeared relaxed. News media were not allowed to attend the ceremony.

"We're not doing any media today," Frank told Reuters.

Frank won a seat in Congress in 1980 and said he will retire at the end of the current term. Besides championing financial reform and the rights of fisherman, Frank has been a vocal supporter of gay rights, which have been gathering support in public opinion polls and U.S. high courts.

In May, for example, a federal appeals court in Boston ruled that a U.S. law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman unconstitutionally denies benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples.

The ruling on the 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act, marked a victory for gay rights groups and President Obama, whose administration announced last year it considered the law unconstitutional and would no longer defend it.

Also in May, President Obama openly endorsed gay marriage, a move that will surely be a flashpoint in the upcoming presidential election.

His Republican opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, opposes gay marriage, saying marriage should be limited to a union between one man and one woman.

Eight of the 50 states and the District of Columbia permit gay marriage. Several polls show U.S. public support of gay marriage rising.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the country where same-sex couples could be legally married. More than 18,000 same-sex couples since then have wed in Massachusetts, according to MassEquality, an advocacy group for gays, bisexuals and transgender people. (Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; editing by Todd Eastham)

The night I landed in Botswana there was a dinner party. Such good luck! A lively, warm gathering of Africans from Zimbabwe, Togo, Kenya, Zambia and Botswana -- university professors of theology, Pentecostal pastors, and NGO workers dealing with HIV and AIDS. Good conversation, great Botswana beef and South African wine.

I don't remember when the conversation turned to the issue of homosexuality, but I was deeply impressed with how it was conducted. The issues here run parallel to their history in the U.S. Homosexuality is still illegal in most countries of southern Africa, though South Africa decriminalized it in 1998. In the U.S. the process of decriminalization began 1983 with Wisconsin and in 2003 a Supreme Court decision effectively decriminalized male homosexuality for the nation.

In the U.S. the cultural notion of homosexuality as deviant was justified scientifically when the American psychiatric profession designated it a mental illness (a position they reversed in 1973). In Africa where kinship systems create the social order and tradition has greater authority than law, same sex relations are condemned "because they are not our tradition."

However, the more powerful justifications are religious, both in the U.S. and in southern Africa. Soon after the discussion began out came the Bibles and the pastors started preaching. One of the women read Romans 1:25-27 aloud -- off a Kindle, the NIV version:

25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

The Africans around the table asked these questions: What do we know about humanity? What does our human knowledge teach us? Is homosexuality a part of human nature? As they pondered, some volunteered their own struggles with the question.

One woman told the story of a deaf boy, raised by his grandmother. As a young man he discovered he was aroused by men. "How did he learn that? Where did he learn it? He was cut off from the community of men by his deafness. Is it simply part of how he was created?" she pondered.

One of the men, a Zambian, told this story: the first Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda, the father of the nation, built the new state, gave it a solid foundation, promoted the welfare of the whole society and was widely admired, loved and respected for his contribution. Yet, when it was learned he had same-sex relations and promoted decriminalization of homosexuality, his legacy was erased. Did he become a different kind of person because he had same sex relations?

What is this human nature? How do we understand it within our respective cultures? What role does religion play in defining heterosexual or homosexual relations as "natural or unnatural?" Feminist biblical scholar Bernadette Brooten ("Love Between Women") asks what influenced Paul's notions of "natural and unnatural" sex.

In Paul's Greco-Roman cultural world sexual relations were important signifiers of social dominance. Sexual relations mirrored social relations -- a power differential between an active partner (penetrator) and a passive partner (penetrated). Whether between a male and female, or a master and a slave, or a man and boy, sexual dominance should correspond with social dominance. Sexual relations between women were unnatural because neither was superior to the other socially, both were culturally inferior; sexual relations between men of the same age or social class were unnatural because they undermined the social superiority of men.

Three centuries after Paul appealed to traditional Roman ideas on same-sex relations, Augustine worked out a Christian theology of sex that created a new cultural framework within which to understand same-sex relations. Augustine uses the creation to craft a new understanding of human nature with his doctrine of original sin as concupiscence. Because of the first sin of disobedience in the garden (rebellion against God's prohibition), God's punishment was the condition of concupiscence (lust), the rational mind is constantly beset by the rebellion of irrational sexual desiring. This sinful concupiscence, inherited by every human being, makes every sexual act inherently sinful, a manifestation of disordered desire. Paul's statement, "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another" at this point is understood in terms of an original sinful, sexual human nature. Birth control, sex after menopause and homosexuality, are all sexual relations that cannot procreate and are therefore reduced to sinful, sexual excess. The idea of human nature as infected with original sin has provided a theological justification to the cultural notion that homosexuality is deviant for Christians in the West.

The differences of views on homosexuality were great between the Africans around the table. The tone was intense and thoughtful, but what surprised me was that the conversation was continually peppered with laughter. I've been in these conversations at home and they have been tense, polarized and polarizing. That didn't happen.

The position that many took was that they were in process; they were struggling with the question. Because they shared their own processing rather than their positions the conversation did not become a debate, there was more space. What I was witnessing was how a community works. First a volunteer facilitator asked speakers to speak from their own experience, from their heart, and second, everyone around the table was called on to express their views. The end was not a resolution of the question but a process of listening and speaking that kept the community together and kept the process open. All kinds of learning was happening around the table and some of it my own.