During the church trial, Bibles were thumbed, the Presbyterian Book of Order was often consulted — and interpretations clashed.
Scott Clark, who led Ms. Spahr's defense, each day placed a small metal cross on top of a Bible on top of the Book of Order before him.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). is governed by a constitution comprising two volumes: the Book of Confessions, which is concerned with matters of doctrine, and the Book of Order, which is concerned with matters of church organization, membership, and government.
The prosecutor, JoAn Blackstone, a former lawyer with a white braid encircling her head, argued that Ms. Spahr had defied the Book of Order, which defines marriage as "a civil contract between a woman and a man".
The proposal to remove the ban from the church's Book of Order, or constitution, was approved, 317 to 208, by the General Assembly of the church, the nation's sixth-largest Protestant denomination.
The court said the only way now to ban holy union ceremonies was to change the church's Book of Order, or constitution, which currently prohibits same-sex marriages but says nothing about holy unions.
Those orders are sent to the lead underwriters, who build a book of orders.
Mr. Maier said he was interviewed in late April by an S.E.C. investigator who showed him what appeared to be Goldman's book of orders for shares of a company that Goldman took public in June 2000.
His next book, "Ideas of Order," published thirteen years later, features what may be the finest American modern poem: "The Idea of Order at Key West".
She wrote on blank newsprint and composed the book out of order, beginning with the last chapter and picking up other sections as her mood suited her.
