RICHMOND, Va.—The Presbyterian Church (USA) moved a step closer to ordaining homosexuals yesterday as a legislative committee approved a measure to partially lift the church's current ban on gay ministers, according the Associated Press.

The proposal awaits a full vote from the church's national legislative assembly. If passed it would overturn a 1978 interpretation of church law prohibiting churches from ordaining gay ministers, elders or deacons. However, churches may still restrict ordination for actively gay and lesbian ministers under a separate 1997 church law.

Church laws notwithstanding, some Presbyterian churches have already been ordaining gays and lesbians.

Among the 8,000 Presbyterians taking part in the weeklong assembly at Richmond's Convention Center, about 100 gathered Sunday in a Marriott Hotel ballroom for the Welcoming Presbyterians Service of Worship. According to the Presbyterian News Service, the event was co-sponsored by three gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organizations: That All May Freely Serve, More Light Presbyterians, and the Shower of Stoles Project. Preachers who spoke at the event referred to God's inclusive love for all of humanity.

The Presbyterian debate over homosexuality has been calm in comparison to debates in the Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran churches that have caused dissention and splinter groups.

But the Presbyterian church is losing members, too. Active membership in the church has declined from 4.2 million in 1983 to 2.4 million today. The church's net loss of 46,658 members from 2002 to 2003 was its worst since the denomination was formed in a 1983 merger between Northern and Southern churches.

At an open hearing before the committee Monday, Martha Juillerat said homosexuals are leaving the church in droves. She said she stepped down as a minister in 1995 after serving in rural Midwestern churches for 15 years because she came out as a lesbian.

"Sometimes it is more than I can bear that this church has decided to discriminate against an entire class of people," Juillerat said. "I know that this church can do better."

The debate over the issue echoed recent similar debates among other churches.

"We have a choice here today whether we can follow ... a signal that comes to us from an ever-moving society that never knows from one generation to the next what its mores are going to be," said Bill Lewis, an elder from Sharonville, Ohio. "Or do we want to follow a beacon that is based in the solid rock of Holy Scripture?"

The assembly passed measures seeking to allow gay pastors in 1997 and 2000, but the proposals were rebuffed by a majority of the country's 173 presbyteries in a referendum.