The measure would have asked church leaders to “issue statements that denounce the practice of killing babies born live following an abortion procedure, such as was revealed in the Dr. Kermit Gosnell clinic in Philadelphia.”
“By overturning natural marriage the PCUSA is only accelerating its already fast-paced demise,” said Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
The decision, affirmed by 52% of the church’s General Assembly, sustains the church’s existing definition of marriage as a “civil contract between a woman and a man.”