Presbyterian Church Faces Revolt Over Monogamy Requirement
A Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) proposal requiring ordained ministers to maintain monogamous relationships has sparked opposition from progressive committees and polyamory advocates within the denomination.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will vote on the monogamy requirement at its General Assembly scheduled for this summer in Milwaukee, according to New York Post. The proposal has provoked sharp opposition from three official progressive church committees as well as polyamorous advocacy groups within the denomination.
Since 2011, the PC(USA) has permitted the ordination of openly homosexual clergy, and in 2014 the denomination redefined marriage to include “two people” rather than limiting it to one man and one woman.
The new proposed rule, designated CON-10, makes no specific reference to sexual orientation or same-sex relationships. Rather, it targets multipartner arrangements, contending that polyamory and polygamy can produce “power imbalances, emotional harm, and spiritual confusion,” especially affecting women, children, and historically marginalized individuals.
Submitted by the Sierra Blanca Presbytery, the measure states that PC(USA) pastors must “display moral character” and, if sexually active, be “living in a monogamous one.” The proposal also calls for the church to develop pastoral resources to assist individuals exiting “polyamorous or polygamous situations.”
Progressive Committees Mount Opposition
Three official PC(USA) advisory bodies have registered their disapproval: the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice, and the Advocacy Committee on LGBTQIA+ Equity.
The Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice declared that mandating monogamy for clergy attempts to “regulate the private lives and relational structures of individuals in ways that risk harm rather than healing.” The committee further contended that such a requirement could “unintentionally reinforce systems of shame, silence, and spiritual coercion.”
The Advocacy Committee on LGBTQIA+ Equity went further, arguing the monogamy rule reinforces White privilege by imposing “a narrow, culturally specific understanding of family” that “privileges a dominant cultural framework over the lived realities of communities of color and global Christians.”
That same committee cited a 2024 academic study in defense of multipartner arrangements, asserting that polyamorous individuals report relationship satisfaction levels comparable to those in monogamous couples.
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy likewise rejected the measure, recommending it be set aside in favor of a separate proposal to study “diverse understandings of relationships.”
Activist Groups Push Back
More Light Presbyterians, a prominent progressive activist organization within the denomination, has mounted an aggressive campaign against the monogamy requirement. The group issued a statement last month claiming the proposal reinforces “narrow and culturally bound definitions of relationships that have historically been used to exclude, police, and harm queer bodies and lives.”
More Light Presbyterians, which conducted a “Faithful Polyamory 101” training session last month, warned that the rule would push the progressive denomination “backward” by centering “a single model of relationship as the only faithful expression of Christian life.”
As an alternative, these progressive committees have strongly endorsed a counterproposal calling for the denomination to fund theological studies on gender, sexuality, relationships, and Christian family vocation that would affirm “different familial realities,” as New York Post reports.
Both the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Presbytery of Sierra Blanca declined to comment on the matter.
With information from New York Post
