Alaskan Pastor to Lead Presbyterian Church : Election: The Rev. David Lee Dobler says he believes in the Bible’s standards on sexuality. But he also urges compassion for those who stray from the tenets.

ORLANDO, Fla. —  An Alaskan pastor who said he upheld biblical standards on sexuality was elected Thursday to lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Rev. David Lee Dobler, 43, was elected moderator of the 2.8-million-member church on the second ballot, narrowly defeating Margaret Wentz, a church elder from Kansas. Dobler received 293 votes to 283 for Wentz, 57, who served as vice chairwoman of the committee that developed a moderate abortion policy approved by the church last year.

Wilton Vincenty, 64, an elder from Puerto Rico who was seeking to become the church’s first Latino moderator, finished third with three votes on the second ballot.

In questioning before the balloting, Dobler said he supported the church’s position, which opposes sex outside of marriage for ordained persons, but said homosexuals or heterosexuals who violate the standard should not be excluded from the church.

“With one arm, we should embrace our biblical standards,” Dobler said. “With our other arm, we should embrace these persons by being caring, concerned and loving.”

Several proposals on homosexuality--to allow the ordination of gay clergy and to strengthen the church’s stand against the practice--have been submitted to the church’s 205th General Assembly, which runs through Wednesday.

The 1991 General Assembly affirmed past church statements declaring homosexuality “is not God’s wish for humanity,” but the controversy broke out again last year when the church’s highest court revoked the appointment of a lesbian minister to a congregation in Rochester, N.Y.

Dobler, a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, has spent his entire ministerial career in Alaska. Prior to his pastorate at Jewel Lake Parish in suburban Anchorage, he served in Yakutat, a Tlingit Indian fishing village on the Gulf of Alaska.

He succeeds the Rev. John Fife, an Arizona pastor who was a leader of the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees, as moderator. The moderator is the chief spokesman for the church and presides over the General Assembly, the church’s policy-making body.