Overtures on racism, gender-affirming care are approved Monday
Commissioners to the 227th General Assembly discern items of business from the Racial Justice and Gender and Sexuality Justice Committees
MILWAUKEE — During the Monday morning plenary, commissioners to the 227th General Assembly approved several pieces of business from the Racial Justice Committee regarding racism. The Assembly also approved a measure regarding gender-affirming healthcare sent by the Gender and Sexuality Justice Committee.
Commissioners approved with amendments several recommendations of the Special Committee on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Race concerning racism and white supremacy.
The measure mandates tracking General Assembly actions relating to racism dating back to reunion in 1983. It also directs that all who seek to serve the church have adequate language translation.
The Rev. Jeny Carlson, a teaching elder from Seattle Presbytery, said the church must confront racism.
“The blunt truth is that we have not made the progress required to address the heavy burdens racism creates and therefore deny the liberating freedom that God has called each of us to,” Carlson said.
“Last week I watched my brothers and sisters of color in committee express their disappointment, their fatigue and their diminished hope of real change in the PC(USA) concerning racism.”
The recommendation also included a direction to Presbyterian Life & Witness to assemble resources on anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, white Christian nationalism and racial justice and make them accessible to the whole church.
Bruce Ward, a Young Adult Advisory Delegate from the Presbytery of Wabash Valley, who served on the committee, stood in support of the motion to approve the recommendations.
“This is a very, very important matter for the church as a whole,” he said. “It’s a very real issue in our country, and it breaks my heart,” Ward said.
Ruling Elder Bisham Singh of Highlands Presbytery offered an amendment to omit white Christian nationalism from the text, saying the term was inflammatory and unnecessary. The amendment was defeated.
Teaching Elder the Rev. Dr. Josh Robinson of Mission Presbytery spoke against the amendment.
“We need to name what is needed to be named, and the longer that we kick that can down the road, the further problem we have acknowledging the ways in which our institutions have been corrupted by our own blindness to sin,” he said.
A motion from the Gender and Sexuality Justice Committee declaring that the PC(USA) supports access to medically necessary, evidence-based gender-affirming healthcare was approved 441-30.
GEN-02, On Access to Health Care, directs the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to update its healthcare policy so that it reflects this topic of business.
Zayn Silva, a corresponding member with the Advocacy Committee for LGBTQIA+ Equity, said the church has struggled to offer compassion for gender-affirming healthcare.
“During the HIV/AIDS crisis, we called treatment moral confusion, and people died without our love,” Silva said.
Silva said compassion for those seeking gender-affirming care is an example of LEAF, an acronym shared in the morning worship by Moderators the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson. LEAF, the Moderators offered, stands for "Love Everyone and Flourish."
“Let us not let people die without love now, because this is a life-and-death matter,” Silva said.
Silva offered statistics from The Trevor Project in 2024: More than 80,000 young people seriously considered suicide in the year before.
“The same research shows that where young people are affirmed, those numbers drop. Gender-affirming care is associated with lower suicide risk,” Silva said.
“The body of Christ does not turn people away from healing,” Silva added.
Commissioners also approved with amendments an item to refer to PL&W and the General Assembly Committee on Representation to further study. The business came in as a commissioner’s resolution that would treat with care the ministries of staff who had served as intercultural congregational associates.
The measure passed with amendments 471-13.
RAC-05, Restoring and Strengthening Racial Equity & Intercultural Congregational Support Ministries, calls for the examination of where the ministries should best be placed organizationally within PL&W.
Having once served under Racial Equity and Women’s Ministry, the ministry associates were redesignated after unification as U.S.-based Global Ecumenical Liaisons and placed under Partnerships Beyond the U.S. in the Interim Unified Agency.
Teaching Elder Carmen Rosario of the Presbytery of the Coastlands, who brought the commissioners’ resolution to move these ministries to Partnerships Within the U.S., spoke in favor of the referral to PL&W.
“This move is not symbolic. It’s structural,” she said. She said this would ensure that the historically marginalized communities in the United States — African American, African, Latino, Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, and other immigrants and diaspora — would be better served.
RAC-01, Formation of a Special Committee on African American Ecclesial Repair, was approved with amendments 454-29.
The recommendation from the Racial Equity Advocacy Committee would establish a special committee to study the harms that African American Presbyterians have suffered throughout the church and recommend ways to repair these harms.
The action would direct PL&W, the Center for the Repair of Historic Harms and other relevant entities of the church to develop initiatives for African American youth leadership development and intercultural engagement across the African diaspora.
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