What the Legal Questions Committee proposes is to ask the Church to make a simple statement about what the Church of Scotland position is on the marking of Civil Partnerships (for instance, with a blessing).

Presbyteries have been instructed to debate and vote for or against the following proposal that was approved by the General Assembly and to report back by December of 2006:

The General Assembly proposal:

1. A minister or deacon who conducts any service marking a civil partnership does not commit a disciplinary offence in terms of current Church of Scotland legislation (Act III 2001 - as amended).
2. No minister or deacon shall be compelled or obliged to conduct such a service against his or her conscience.
3. Where a minister or deacon officiating at such service has been approached by the parties in the first instance, or where a minister or deacon so approached officiates in circumstances where the parish minister has declined to officiate, such minister or deacon shall not be deemed to have intruded upon the sphere of ministry of a parish minister in terms of section 18 of Act II 2000.

Given that Civil Partnerships are now recognised by the civil law and have implications for human rights, housing and pensions, the Church cannot ignore the issue. It is worth noting that in 1993 the General Assembly declined to forbid ministers from blessing same-sex relationships as it has done again this year. The measure proposed by the General Assembly affirms the freedom of conscience ministers and deacons currently have – whether to accept or decline an invitation to conduct a blessing as their conscience dictates.

The proposal affirms the right to offer a pastoral response to a new need that has arisen because of changes in civil law. The remit of the Legal Questions Committee was to provide a response to the disciplinary issue potentially faced by ministers and deacons, and not respond to the wider area of the Church’s attitude to human sexuality that will be debated at the 2007 General Assembly in a report from the Mission and Discipleship Council.

Rev Dr Derek Browning