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convinced that the problem is widespread but it is surfacing in a number

of ways which make it inevitable that it will be dragged from the closet

and paraded as a public controversy.

This year's general assembly heard that the 1994 assembly will be

hearing two reports about human sexuality -- from the Board of Social

Responsibility and the Panel on Doctrine.

The convener of the latter's sub-committee on sex and marriage,

theologian Liz Templeton, has already made it clear that her view (even

if she does not carry her committee) is to endorse same-sex

relationships. One of her friends, Rev. Margaret Forrester, who is

convener of the Board of World Mission and Unity, and a leading figure

in Kirk policy making, has already blessed the same-sex relationship of

two women in her Edinburgh parish.

Two swallows do make a summer but there were some who couldn't swallow

this and, without naming Mrs F, wanted the assembly to rebuke such

conduct. The assembly wouldn't take it on and so this week one of the

disgruntled proposers, Rev. Robert Walker of Gardenstown, raised the

matter in the Presbytery of Buchan -- the part of the country where

brethren keep close ranks.

This time he had come well prepared with a motion which was careful to

make a distinction between homosexual genital acts (''which are

condemned in Scripture as perverted and immoral and incompatible with

Christian standards'') and homosexual orientation. Those ''wrestling''

with their sexual orientation, according to Mr Walker's motion, were not

disqualified from Christian discipleship or from becoming ministers

provided they did not indulge in homosexual behaviour.

His motion won the day and has been sent to all presbytery clerks

(presumably to encourage them to take up the cudgels). Although it

apparently makes Buchan a no-go area for gay ministers, it does not have

the force of legislation. That would require general assembly approval.

However, it does show that there is a growing body of opinion which will

fight hard against any endorsement of same-sex relationships. This issue

has yet to hit the Kirk in a public way, and I suspect when it does it

will prove just as damaging as it did in the Presbyterian churches of

North America.

Ignoring the issue will not make it go away. Pretending it doesn't

exist is liable to bring even greater difficulties. Killearn Parish

Church found this when they appointed Rev. Francis Dixon from Glenburn

Paisley as their sole nominee earlier this year.

Just as he was due to leave, he was named in a Sunday newspaper as one

of a group of men in the Paisley area using rent-boys. At first a

tearful Mr Dixon denied the charge, claiming he had been offering

counselling to the youth in question and on the day of publication, Dr

Andrew Weir, the Killearn session clerk, stood in front of a stunned

congregation to tell them not to believe what they read in the

newspapers. ''We will get our minister,'' he told them.

When tapes and transcripts revealed a Jekyll-and-Hyde life which Mr

Dixon had led, masquerading as a teacher in his dealings with the

rent-boys, he withdrew from Killearn and resigned from his Paisley

parish. Nobody should take glee in the pain brought upon the Dixon

family, but it was not the publicity which caused it. Whereas anyone

reading Dr Weir's explanation of the events in the May newsletter in

Killearn would have been forgiven for thinking it was all a nasty plot

got up by the media.

The same vacancy committee resumed their task and are now near to

revealing another name. For the peace and unity of Killearn I can only

hope this will be someone with a healing touch. In most organisations a

committee that got it so horribly wrong would at least have offered

their resignations, but perhaps they have decided to work their penance

by making a brilliant appointment.

The Killearn case illustrates a tendency to close ranks and hope

unpleasant affairs will go away. They won't.

How then are we to deal with the closets of the Kirk? Are we to

cleanse them with Buchan witchfinders? Let them breathe good Killearn

air? Or are we to leave a couple of mothballs and hope that will deter

the corrupting moth? I suspect that none of these remedies is sufficient

to deal with something which is defined as a sin by some and a

legitimate lifestyle option by others.

There are stormy times ahead and this may well be the issue on which

the conservative evangelicals show the strength they have been amassing

within the ministry in recent years. On this issue they will probably

attract support from those, like this writer, who resent the fact that

the issue is often presented as pro-gay or anti-gay. Neither does

justice to the problem.

Like politics and religion, sexuality and morality are inextricably

mixed into life. What matters is whether the religion gets lost in the

politics or the morality is forgotten in the sexuality. The Buchan

declaration has the moral merit of making the distinction that it is

what we do with what we are, that is important.