Re The P in PCC, part four, January Letters
In 1997, I was attending Knox College and had applied to the Presbytery of Hamilton to be certified as a candidate for the Ministry of Word and Sacraments. After the Charlottetown General Assembly of that year (and citing a decision in the Darryl Macdonald case) Presbytery decided not to certify me as a candidate because I was living then in a same-sex relationship. Thereafter, my partner and I left the PCC for the United Church of Canada in which he had been raised. After we ended our relationship in 2002, I returned to the PCC. Since that time, although I have been in the Presbyterian Church in Canada I have not honestly felt I was of the PCC. I try to support the local congregation to which I belong (both with my presence at services and financially as I am able) but I decline any longer to support the denomination in which I have lived my whole life otherwise – and which once certified me (Presbytery of Barrie in the 1970s) – but which I feel has now betrayed me. Notwithstanding the support of those who signed this letter one only has to witness the homophobic vitriol of some of the other Letters to the Editor on this subject to appreciate that it is going to be a very long time before those of us who are gay and lesbian in the PCC feel that we are anything less than second-class members.
