Jane Dempsey Douglass, who moderated the Debrecen general council, presents the first of two reports on the work of the taskforce on sexual orientation established after Debrecen.

Pressing the Alliance into new areas of work is one of the many roles of the general council. Sometimes the new work is trickier than others.

At the 23rd general council (Debrecen 1997), three reports - from section 1 (on Reformed faith and the search for unity), from the policy committee, and from the public issues committee - raised issues related to sexual orientation with which the Alliance had not previously dealt. Reflected in these reports were:

concern about violence and discrimination against gay men and lesbian women,
concern about their inclusion in or exclusion from the life of the Christian community, and
desire to encourage constructive dialogue within and among the churches.

The public issues committee recognized that because of "deep differences of opinion", consensus among member churches on sexual orientation would require a period of "open dialogue and careful consideration", but hoped that Alliance churches might now begin the difficult task of struggling with these issues "and of hearing each other with respect".

Burdened with a heavy agenda, the council itself never succeeded in acting on these matters, so it referred them to the new executive committee. Aware that questions of sexual orientation are sensitive in many member churches, the executive committee appointed a taskforce on sexual orientation to explore how best to address these referrals.

The concerns expressed at Debrecen reflect a rising awareness in many places around the world, north and south, that the churches must begin to talk more openly about sexuality in general than they have in the past, so that appropriate pastoral guidance can be given to church members, church structures and policy can reflect the church's theological understanding, and the church can help the wider society deal responsibly with sexuality. Nonetheless attempts to begin this conversation have often proved difficult and divisive - especially where church people try to talk about differences in sexual orientation, which is a taboo subject in many cultures.

Emotions are very close to the surface in these conversations. Deeply Christian people have profoundly different attitudes based in large part on different ways of reading the Bible, whose authority they all hold dear.

The taskforce decided to start by addressing the first Debrecen concern: violence and discrimination against people of homosexual orientation. Other aspects of the question might be controversial, but here the taskforce felt there should be broad agreement. The human rights of people of homosexual orientation, like those of all people, should be respected.

WARC has a long and courageous tradition of supporting human rights for all. Faced with many accounts from around the world of discrimination and serious, even murderous violence against people thought to be homosexual, the taskforce believed that a consensus was possible in calling for respect of the image of God in all people.

A statement was proposed to the executive committee in Bangalore in 2000, thoroughly discussed (often with passion), reworked, and finally adopted. This is the first public statement made by WARC about people of homosexual orientation. At its most recent meeting in July in Torre Pellice, the executive committee decided to forward this statement to the next general council.

Also in Bangalore, the executive committee decided that the taskforce should now focus on encouraging dialogue among member churches rather than advocacy for any position. A second article will describe a survey done to learn whether member churches were discussing sexual orientation, whether they had taken any position on the matter, and whether they had study materials to share.

Jane Dempsey Douglass, taskforce convener

Human rights and sexual orientation (Bangalore 2000)

WARC has long worked for respect for the human rights of all people. Therefore the executive committee expresses its concern about reports from around the world that people who are identified as homosexual are experiencing denial of their fundamental human rights.

It is shocking to hear of people who have been murdered or savagely beaten without provocation simply because their attackers believed they were homosexual. Others have been denied employment or housing on the grounds of their sexual orientation.

Just as we have learned that we cannot treat people of other races or ethnic backgrounds or religions as lesser beings on the basis of myths and stereotypes, so we must also treat people of homosexual orientation as human beings, made in the image of God. It is this image of God that they bear that demands our respect and fair treatment.

Therefore we call on the member churches of the Alliance:

to work with civil authorities to assure that people of homosexual orientation have full and just protection under the UN universal declaration of human rights;
to seek to understand their situation, especially where their human rights are threatened, to replace relationships of fear and mistrust with relationships of justice, love, and compassion. In this way we shall be taking steps to model Jesus' outreaching love to those who had been marginalized by his own society.