Statement on Same-sex Marriage
By L. Roy Taylor, Stated Clerk

The Supreme Court of the United States has issued a 5-4 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. The Office of the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has received numerous inquiries regarding the position of the PCA on this issue. The PCA, like other evangelical, conservative, orthodox, and traditional Christians from many denominations, believes that from creation God ordained the marriage covenant to be a bond only between one man and one woman. That understanding is what the Church has always believed, taught, and confessed. It is based upon the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and is clearly stated in the doctrinal standards of the PCA.

Over the last 2,000 years, changing cultures and secular legal perspectives have differed on significant occasions from that of Christians and the Church because the Church bases her ethical and moral positions on timeless truths divinely revealed in the Bible. The Ancient and Undivided Church disagreed with abortion and infanticide, practices that were acceptable in Roman culture and legal under Roman law. In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States legalized abortion. Though abortion became legal, we cannot regard it to be moral. Though same-sex marriage is now legal, the PCA, like many others, does not regard it to be in keeping with God’s intentions for marriage. We hope that the recent Supreme Court ruling does not become the occasion for limiting the religious and free-speech rights of believers and churches who, like others for thousands of years, sincerely believe in traditional marriage.

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