Presbyterian Court OK's Gay Man's Ordination

Scott Anderson (pictured), a gay man who left the Presbyterian ministry 21 years ago, can now return to the pulpit, the denomination's highest court ruled this week.

The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Permanent Judicial Commission dismissed an appeal aimed at blocking Anderson's ordination, noting that a recent change in church law allowing noncelibate gay and lesbian clergy made the appeal moot, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The ruling came Monday and was made public Tuesday.

Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches since 2003, is scheduled to be ordained in Madison, Wis., October 8. "It's wonderful news," he told the Journal Sentinel. "It's been a long and exhaustive journey, and I'm thankful it's over."

Anderson was originally ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1982 in California, but he left the ministry in 1990 after being outed by members of his congregation. In 2006 he applied for ordination in Wisconsin. The Presbyterian governing body for the state approved his application last year, but a group of churches sued to block it. A lower church court upheld the approval in November, and the judicial commission's ruling affirms that.

In May a majority of presbyteries voted to ratify a policy approved by the denomination's legislative body last year, removing language requiring clergy to live "in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness" and therefore allowing individual presbyteries to decide whom to ordain.