ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the conservative Christian (CC) concerns homosexual conduct and gay rights. It focuses upon this paradigm incident of church autonomy, the right to select Gay clergy, as an illustration of the clash between religious rights and gay rights. Homosexual conduct is a subject that divides the CC from his or her liberal Christian counterpart. Homosexual intercourse between consenting males was duly decriminalized when the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 came into force. The CC challenge to homosexual law reform in the mid-1980s had not been a completely futile exercise. The ordination of openly-practicing homosexual or lesbian candidates for the ministry (OPHM) has been a matter of sharp controversy within certain New Zealand denominations. The experience of the churches debating in the shadow of the Human Rights Act supports the supposition of some American judges that the mere prospect of state intrusion may intrude upon a church's process of self-definition and thus entail a 'chilling effect' upon church autonomy.
