Among the measures under consideration are demands to confirm the religion’s traditional definition of marriage, as between a man and a woman, along with calls to change that definition to reflect a relationship between “two people,” as well as a proposal to allow Presbyterian ministers to perform same sex marriage rites in states where marriage equality is legal.

In recent years, approximately 200 Presbyterian congregations have left the denomination, in large part because of the contentious debate concerning gay marriage. Last year, the denomination voted to permit the ordination of persons who are in openly gay relationships as ministers and lay clergy.

The new rules, which also apply to elders and deacons, do not require churches to ordain gay candidates, but they remove barriers to their ordination that were written into the church’s constitution. The old text of the church’s Book of Order banned non-celibate clergy who did not live “within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.” That prohibition was added in 1997.

The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. is the latest of several Protestant denominations that have dropped bans on gay clergy. Others include the United Church  of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Episcopal Church. A smaller denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, does not ordain women or openly gay clergy.