on the scene details of "the vote"

Hi.

this blog post is especially for Presby folks. I thought you might like to know that the assembly vote was 380 "yes" to 325 "nos" on the vote to delete the current paragraph which requires church officers to "live in within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or single" and replace it with new language. now, that does not mean that the Book of Order will automatically change. This action, like some others taken at the General Assembly will have to be taken back to the 173 Presbyteries for 2/3rds majority approval. Similar proposals in 1997 and 2000 sent to the Presbyteries were rejected. There also was a minority report that some would have hope would have been the recommendation sent to the Presbyteries instead. The General Assembly rejected the minority report on a vote of 319 to 375. When the final vote was taken on the committee's recommendation, the room was silent. No cheering, just silence.

F.Y.I Concerning the counting. We all had electronic push button keypads to use in voting. One would vote within 8 seconds. The screen in the front of the room would give the percentages of yes to no, or 1,2,3 choices in bar graph form, with the actual numbers at the top of the bargraph. It was not used in every vote. Many times, voice votes were adequate. But, on important issues, or when the voice vote result was undetermined, the voting keypads were used.