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I think it's both. To judge is to decide whether someone is acceptable, and adding sexual preferences to the list of qualifications doesn't stop it from being judgment.

And if this follows what the Bible commands, then so be it. The Bible tells Christians that they will help judge the world. At least that's what Paul supposedly said. If they don't like that part of the Bible, they'll just have to find some way to live with it.

The sexuality issue is a symbol for the deeper, real conflict between two ways of interpreting scripture. The literalist side takes the bible at face value (except when it doesn't), so they say homosexuality is a sin, and that accepting it undermines scriptural authority. The liberal side says that the core values of scripture, which by an amazing coincidence happen to be the values of secular humanism -- tolerance, diversity, inclusiveness, and relativism -- require that the bible be reinterpreted according to our modern sensibilities in order to be "relevant"; therefore sexual orientation is no bar to ministry provided it is exercised lovingly. I no longer take sides in this tiresome controversy, but only point out that the issue isn't really sexuality, but biblical authority.

"I no longer take sides in this tiresome controversy, but only point out that the issue isn't really sexuality, but biblical authority." Kuranes

Bravo! You at least see the real issue here. Without some objective standard that does not change with the winds of cultural shift, you end up with anything and everything. But even if one doesn't credit the Scriptures with high or absolute authority, any moronic exegete can see that homosexuality is NOT a valid option in ANY portion or book of the Bible; in light of which, the Presbys have simply abandoned the Bible as having any binding authority; becoming humanist wolves dressed in clerical woolies.

They ( and the Episcopalians) are apparently content to have sodomizing perverts as role models for their young men - and probably sympathize with the RC priests who were finally caught doing what perverts do. They are the REAL rotting corpse of Christianity, along with the TV hucksters and other assorted hypocrites and religionizers. True and honest followers of the Master are hard to find in the American religious wilderness of hollow men. The apostate churches are simply institutionalizing what they have believed and taught in their seminaries for decades.

Perhaps it's time to bury the rotting corpse and discover the real Jesus and NT reality - outside the Box!

Gadfly, you need to brush up on your history if you think the Bible provides an "objective standard that does not change." It was not that long ago that most people thought the Bible justified, indeed mandated, the execution of heretics, the torture of prisoners and the enslaving of the "inferior". Nevertheless, these supposedly objective, unchanging absolutes are no longer thought to have biblical sanction (though I believe a good case can be made that the Bible supports, or at least does not condemn, them all). But my point is that historically, the Biblical absolutes have changed drastically, if not as rapidly, over the years, as any humanist ones (which remain relatively constant).
Meanwhile, you are judging rather harshly for someone who presumably believes that he or she will be judged with the same strictness. Better be sure there is no log in your own eye.