This year the United Methodist Church held its quadrennial General Conference, where they were scheduled to revisit (as they do every four years, according to my Methodist friends) that church’s discriminatory language against LGBT people.
Candace Chellew-Hodge of Religion Dispatches is reporting that delegates voted this morning on a petition to remove passages in the UMC’s Book of Discipline that call LGBT orientation/identity “incompatible with Christian teaching” and exclusively sanction opposite-sex marriages. Tragically, the petition was voted down and the anti-gay language preserved.
The vote apparently came after a contentious debate pitting supporters of LGBT inclusion against delegates from sexually conservative countries, including African nations. One African delegate conflated homosexuality and bestiality and denied that God creates any gay or lesbian people.
Chellew-Hodge recounts what happened next:
During the vote, supporters of the petition to change the Book of Discipline stood at the edges of the convention floor, or the “bar” as the church calls it. As the debate continued, many delegates moved from their seats to join the members on the margins to show their solidarity. In the end the petition failed to pass.
When the conference reconvened after a break, those who supported the petition remained in the hall, singing as business began again. The presiding bishop, Michael Coyner of the Indiana Conference, shut down the meeting, calling the LGBT advocates a “security concern.”
Singing? A security concern? Sheesh — I’m a vocal musician myself, and if I had known that the simple act of singing held such subversive power, I’d have bought tickets to CPAC and sung “Kumbaya” with Maggie Gallagher! Who knows what mischief I’d have been able to accomplish?
In all seriousness, though, today is a sad day for the United Methodist Church. How tragic that they chose again to accommodate bigotry rather than act justly, walk humbly, and reach out inclusively to their LGBT congregants (especially since so many churches and Methodist groups are already doing so). This pandering to the Stone Age sexual mores of anti-gay leaders is a troubling pattern in mainline Protestant churches that needs to be reversed. The UMC will have two other opportunities to take positive steps in that direction during their General Conference: before the gathering’s scheduled end tomorrow, delegates will take up the ordination of LGBT clergy and the (non-marital) blessing of same-sex relationships.
Given what happened today, I’m not holding my breath, but anything is possible.
They will come around eventually. There is still a small, but shrinking, percentage of people in the Episcopal Church who are still bitching about women Priests and Bishops, let alone full LGBT inclusion. Africa has been an albatross around our necks over these issues for a long time and the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, ruined his tenure in office by caving into them. Most of us think we should just cut Africa loose and let them continue to live in their benighted world without the rest of us.
John, I am a United Methodist, but I am opposed to my church’s stand regarding homosexuality. As one of the retired clergy who attends my church says, “The only way this policy will be changed is a division in the church with the African and Asian church being separated from the United States and most of Europe”. I guess it would become the UnUnited Methodist Church at that point (sorry for the weak attempt at humor). When people ask me my stand, I tell them it’s the opposite of what my church says and I am accepting of homosexuality. I believe a person’s worth should be measured by what’s in his/her heart and not who he/she chooses to make a commitment. And yes, you are right. Don’t hold your breath. The United Methodist Church leadership goes through this exercise in futility every four years with the same wrong conclusion.
–Hal Baird
slow – but the train has left the station – the church always takes 100 yrs to transform on issues (and they have repeatedly transformed their stances) – TY to all who continue to work and live and breathe for social and spiritual justice – we move forward so one day truth and love and freedom for others happens, even if not to and for us in our own lifetimes….
hal is right, the majority of us congregations have shifted enough to have made these changes, but as long as the african and asian churches have a voice, the church cannot adapt. the methodist church has schismed before. it will need to again because the united is no longer the truth. the church split over slavery, and 100 years later healed the rift. its time to split again, and see how the african diocese make out without that financial support.
Cindy,
Better than the Roman Catholic Church. It took them hundreds of years to admit that Galileo was right about heliocentric theory.
I was so hoping for change this year. I’m inclined to agree with bandanajack about a split. I won’t leave – my congregation is “reconciling” – but I’m very disappointed.
[...] the original post: Truth Wins Out – Methodist Church Votes to Preserve Bigotry Posted in Church Tags: church, every-four, general-conference, held-its, methodist, united, [...]
That’s the problem with accursed homosexual filth, you only think about yourselves. You can’t stop thinking about your a*s long enough to realize that the Methodists voted to continue their relationship with a people who teach that Jesus’ Mother was a w***e.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftWgHI4fncM
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/talmudtruth.html
You obviously think about us having sex much more than we do Adam.
Hey everyone, don’t think that churches can’t change. The Catholic Church deserves some credit for doing what they can to stop helping the poor and favour big business over society.
Adam, I’m having a very difficult time with this.
your name is Adam, right? Goldberg? right? Just about as Jewish a name as one could have unless you’re named Sholom Aleichem
Yet you link to a hate-the-jews website of, shall we put it delicately, virulent Jew haters of the worst sort. And you repeat the slander tha Jesus’s mother was a w***e. You use terms ofthe utmost drama. I mean, really!!!! Accursed homosexual filth, but you can’t bring yourself to spell a*s and w***e? They’re in Shakespeare, for chrissakes.
I don’t know whether to pity you, because you clearly have some issues. Or to be afraid of you, because you seem not to have much contact with reality, except to feed your anger and great.
Please get help..
I’m a former United Methodist, but, very wisely, kicked ALL religion out of my life 30 years ago. It’s the best decision I ever made. I no longer worry about going to hell because there isn’t one.
I believe it was Karl Marx who said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” How true.
Jerry
We’re proud of this decision. Homosexuality and bestiality is not acceptable according to the Bible because God did not create gay or lesbian people. They are products of our failing society and coming out of that lifestyle is what I pray for, for all of them.
Mom, is that you?? Wow Donna, so much blatant hatred in such a short posting it even overshadows the ignorance and lies. Please don’t pray for me. If anyone IS keeping a celestial record of us to review when we die, I would really prefer not to have anything on mine even remotely connected to you. Thanks.
Doug, it really isn’t hatred.
It’s ignorance of the worst sort, coupled with the spiritual arrogance of a Christian who is completely assured of her self-assigned, wholly imaginary moral, spiritual, and human superiority.
Donna, your god is alknowing and allpowerful. He knew Adam and Eve would fail when he created them, he knew they would eat the forbidden fruite because they did not have the knowledge of good and evil and couldn’t know it was wrong to disobey your god. Your god punished innocent Adam and Eve and immorally punishes all their decendents who had no responsibility whatsover for what Adam and Eve did. There is no such thing as inheriting guilt Donna. Your god created gayness and bestiality and that’s the way he wants the world to be. Being all powerful if the world weren’t the way he wanted it he would have changed it.
Priya,
Not meaning to hijack the conversation towards theology, there’s really a lot of different ideas about God.
It’s mostly a free will thing; God creates humans as his greatest creation with free will, because if they didn’t have free will they wouldn’t be human. In these cases, God creates the “opportunities” to sin, because his creatures have free will. Even if there is a genetic link to sexuality, people are still given a CHOICE in how they are to respond.
Didn’t mean to take it on a tangent path, but your statement just reminded me of a couple different essays about Catholic theology I had been reading.
Richard:
Your version of God is phony and moronic and I have zero respect for it. In your perverted view, God creates millions of gay people who have the capacity to experience love, contentedness, and great joy. But he prefers instead of making each other happy and fulfilled, living lives of misery, loneliness and extreme sexual frustration. Worse, he prefers they drag in some member of the opposite sex, depriving them of joy and satisfaction too.
Your a pervert and your version of God is pure crap. I will no longer entertain your sick and cruel views as valid and normal. Thet are a perverts views who does not give a s**t about his fellow human beings.
Wayne,
The fact that you tie sexual being as the only possible gateway to “love, contentedness, and great joy,” is extremely disheartening to me, and speaks to the materialistic, vacuous world in which we currently live. There are many, many, many other sources of peace and fulfillment aside from intimate social interaction and sexual contact. I don’t believe the idea of abstinence is cruel, I mean, unless you’re really that sexually depraved.
Also, as an atheist, this is not quite my personal view of God, but it’s always been an extremely fascinating idea about the implication of free will. (My views of God are structured on mathematics.)
I’ve only had fairly calm discussions with you Wayne, in the occassional event you do reply. I did not expect you to be quite that reactionary. You seem to be in a dark place at the moment, and I wish you well.
Wing-nut the fact that you refer to our relationships as sexually depraved, materialistic, and vacuous and completely disregard the emotional aspect is the reason you are a bigot and a wingnut.
Wingnut Richard said “there’s really a lot of different ideas about God. It’s mostly a free will thing; God creates humans as his greatest creation with free will”.
That doesn’t change a thing I said Richard, your god is all powerful and all knowing so he knew how the world and all the people in it would turn out when he created them and if he wanted the world and any people in it to be different than they are they would be – the world is exactly how your god wants it.
Chrisitians try to hide behind the free will thing as an excuse for your god creating a world full of evil but free will is not now and never has been absolute. You cannot walk through walls or teleport yourself with the will of your mind throughout the universe. There are always limits to free will and if your god had prevented people from doing wrong they would still have the limited free will as they do now. Your god is an evil god, creating humans knowing how they will turn out and that he will torture them eternally for behaving exactly as he knew they would when he created them.
Wingnut Richard said “The fact that you tie sexual being as the only possible gateway to “love, contentedness, and great joy,” is extremely disheartening to me, and speaks to the materialistic, vacuous world in which we currently live. There are many, many, many other sources of peace and fulfillment aside from intimate social interaction and sexual contact. I don’t believe the idea of abstinence is cruel, I mean, unless you’re really that sexually depraved.”.
It is deplorable that you make out loving sexual relationships to be materialistic, vacuous, and depraved. There is nothing unsavoury about sex and it speaks to your poor mental health that you view romantic and sexual relationships as a negative thing and somehow less moral than non-sexual romantic relationships. You keep your sexual hangups and we’ll continue to have romantic guilt free sexual relationships.
You’ve misunderstood me. I’m talking about the physical aspect of any and all relationships not being solely necessary to happiness, not just the relationships pertinent to this site. I believe my statement was very clear, as it says “materialistic, vacuous WORLD” not ‘people.’ Wayne’s idea was an indicator of what I was suggesting.
And as a personal defense, I have not called anyone names to date, and do not appreciate being called a bigot. Nor do I appreciate being called a pervert, even if the guy who called me that founded this organization.
Thanks
We understand you just fine Wing-nut. You’re shaming gay people for doing things you don’t think we should and reducing us to our sexual desires. You hide behind the excuse that you apply this to everyone but since you never insist that straight people be celibate that is an obvious lie.
Don’t appreciate being called a bigot? Too bad. It’s what you get for saying bigoted things like judging us for our relationships. Don’t appreciate being called a pervert? Too bad. It’s what you get for butting into other people’s sex lives. You’re just a typical bully trying to play the victim because your targets didn’t roll over and take it like good little inferiors.
Must we fit this discussion into soundbytes?
Things are right, and things are wrong. Gravity on Earth will only act in one direction. Two plus two will never equal five; pi, and what it fundamentally represents, will never become the diameter divided by the circumfrence. People will do right, and people will do wrong.
Why is there a fundamental denial of this duality? I don’t say things because I allegedly loathe people, I say things because this is what the world means in human terms.
And you characterize certain people as doing wrong for no other reason than that you don’t like them. That’s called bigotry.
Wingnut Richard said ” I believe my statement was very clear, as it says “materialistic, vacuous WORLD” not ‘people”.
That’s disingenous. When you say “world” it is obvious you’re talking about all the people on the planet. The planet itself apart from humanity cannot be materialistic and vacuous, only people can. You described people who feel its cruel to deprive them of a sex life as “sexually depraved”, you’re painting sex and sexual desires as unsavoury when there is nothing wrong or immoral about them. It is you who has an unhealthy attitude towards sex, not the people who think its cruel to deprive them of a sex life. Sexual activity does not debase a relationship in anyway no matter how much you want to inflict that idea on innocent people.
I’m saying it’s not necessary like food, clothing, housing, oxygen, etc…
No you’re not Wing-nut. You’re saying sex and physical relationships are something gay people shouldn’t be allowed to have but are perfectly fine for straight people, and now you’re trying to play the victim because you’ve been called out on how cruel this is in practice.
No, I’m saying it’s not necessary for ANYONE in that context.
No you’re not Wing-nut. You only ever shame gay people for having sex lives. The straight lives of straight people have your full approval. Straight people get to do whatever they want but when we say we should be able to do the same things you call us depraved, materialistic, and vacuous. Then you pretend to be the victim because the targets of your shaming attempts are defending themselves instead of rolling over and taking it like good little inferiors.
I’m not shaming people. Those are the parameters of the world. I’m not “playing victim,” I’m attempting to assert a degree of civility considering that I haven’t personally called anyone names.
And in the idea of “taking it like good little inferiors…” (since you oddly seem to like that phrase) I certainly wouldn’t want to “give” whatever that is exactly to anyone here. Heh heh…
Wingnut Richard said “No, I’m saying it’s not necessary for ANYONE in that context.”.
Utterly irrelevant, that can never justify depriving anyone of, or discouraging them from, having a sex life. That you would even bring that up suggests you think it is on some level justifiable to deprive people of sex in a romantic relationship – it most certainly is not.
So Wing-nut, you don’t consider it shaming to reduce a certain group of people to their sex lives and nothing else while telling them that anything other than life-long celibacy is depraved, materialistic, and vacuous because the “parameters of the world” require it for some undefined reason? You think it’s civil to insult people like this? You think it’s civil to wish this kind of cruelty on people who have done nothing to hurt you? You don’t think it’s victim-playing to start whining because your targets called you out for the way you’re treating them?
You are not being civil. You are throwing around bigoted insults and trying to inflict lives filled with misery and loneliness on innocent people for no reason other than your own hatred. Then like every other bully on the planet you’re crying and screaming about how mean your targets are being because they’re defending themselves instead of just letting you attack them. You are a bigot and a bully and no amount of pretty words changes the pain you are trying to inflict on people.
Wingnut spews: “The fact that you tie sexual being as the only possible gateway to “love, contentedness, and great joy,” is extremely disheartening to me, and speaks to the materialistic, vacuous world in which we currently live.”
Richard, it is not the only way. But if you are too stupid to know the difference between the love if a parent, friend, cat — and romantic love, you are even
morw far gone mentally than I realized.
Yep, Richie, all humans need romantic love but the gays. They just need your perverted and twisted cult version of God.
No thanks, dude.
Wayne, according to what I found, the percentage of people who never ever get married hovers around 2-5% in America. Now, I don’t know if they all had relationships, but if it’s such a problem, and since you’re so psyched about marriage, you should totally marry them all. On a serious note, people live like that, without relation. I don’t see where the necessity is exactly.
Through choice or circumstance, some people simply don’t end up in a long-term relationship. If that is their choice, then fine, no one is trying to take that away from people. You on the other hand Wing-nut are trying to shame gay people into thinking it’s the only choice. And yet you pretend to be the victim when that bigotry is called what it is.
Wingnut Richard said “On a serious note, people live like that, without relation. I don’t see where the necessity is exactly.”.
Once again, its utterly irrelevant that people can survive without sex, in no way does that justify discouraging anyone from having sex. It isn’t necessary to have any human contact whatsoever to survive but that sure as hell doesn’t mean its not torture to most people to deprive them of that.
Richard:
There is no guarantee that anyone will get laid or find live. But to tell sexually functioning beings with hearts to turn down opportunities is pure madness. But you are mad, so I’m not surprised.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker, he really is a “wing-nut”…
Er… that was supposed to go here
[...] LGBT rights in other mainline Christian denominations has been mixed. The Methodist Church recently voted to preserve anti-gay language in that church’s bylaws, also caving under pressure from [...]