Doors Closed Again on LGBT Gifts and Graces

We ran into Delyn Celec outside the Fort Worth Convention Center and she asked us to share her story on the blog. Just last week she was denied candidacy for ordination due to her sexual orientation.

"Even I must admit: I looked pathetic. I arrived early for my meeting with my District Committee, excited to share some of my ideas about the Church of the Future that I had been dreaming up with my colleagues. I was seeking certification of my candidacy, and had been a declared candidate for two years. I was nervous about whether I would be able to articulate the answers to the questions being asked. What if they ask about my beliefs about substitutionary atonement or bodily resurrection or inclusive God-language? While we waited for the committee to finish its early-morning business, my seasoned mentor kept me chatting about silly stuff to distract me from my anxiety.

They saw my mentor first. They always do. He talked with them privately for a few minutes before I was invited to join them. I walked into the room and sat next to him, and he looked decidedly unhappy. As per status quo, each person introduced or re-introduced him- or herself to me, following a standard clockwise motion around the large circle of tables. I wrote down all of their first names and titles, so that I could address each one by name as they grilled me about the difficult questions. On such a lovely spring day, during which everything was in bloom, the tissue boxes and sniffly noses did not strike me as strange.

The compliments about my ministry were gushing. The gratitude shared about my work was affirming. I believe that every person on that committee had been led in worship by me at some conference or another, and it felt comforting to know that many appreciated those times. My District Superintendent, then “got down to business,” sharing with me that the website of my party celebrating my union with my partner, Sarah, had been viewed by the committee members.

I am sure that my face fell, because many looked away.

She asked me if I did, in fact, celebrate a Civil Union. I said yes. She asked me if I was aware of the Book of Discipline’s stand on homosexuality. I said yes. She clarified, “Do you know the language in paragraph 304.3?” You mean the incompatibility clause about discriminating against self-avowed, practicing homosexuals? Of course I know it. All the Queers in Methodism know it.

I could not hold back my tears anymore. It is interesting that I was the last person in the room to break down. Maybe I am used to being tough about the discrimination. I guess we, the LGBTQI folk who face it every day, are used to being tough just like our straight sisters, and our sisters and brothers of color, and all of those who are marginalized by a lack of unearned privilege.

I think my District Superintendent had expected a fight, because she appeared surprised as she closed her thick file folder to which she had looked ready to refer. I asked if I was excused. The chairperson, a near-retirement aged, straight, white, male clergyperson, dearly loved by many in this conference (myself included), gave me the opportunity to withdraw before they voted. I thanked the committee for the choice, and asked them to vote. I refused to be the one to take responsibility for this injustice. I have remained faithful to my call.

Tearful words of support and affirmation of my ministry as a lay-person were shared by many. Phrases such as “casualties of progress” and “discrimination against God’s children” and “prayers for change” were used. Many on the committee made pastoral comments about their availability to me. Only in retrospect did I notice that no one asked how my new Civil Union was going.

My mentor was angry with me. Although I had been out to him for several months and he knew that I was partnered, he did not know about Sarah’s and my celebration. This was the hardest part for me, knowing that he was blindsided by the committee. As he was approaching retirement in just a couple of months, this was an unpleasant circumstance among unpleasant circumstances. He has been tremendously supportive of my call and my ministry, and I love and respect him. It has occurred to me since: perhaps straight, white males do not make the types of terrible choices that we do. I do regret my decision to exclude him from invitation to my Celebration, but if that is my deepest regret, I have journeyed through this with integrity. I have done what I am called to do, and gone where I am called to go.

I had known from the day I “Got the Call” that I probably would be rejected by the United Methodist Church; I did not expect it quite so soon. I am also surprised at how sad I am. My usual grieving style tends to focus more closely on the “angry” part. But this wound is still fresh.

My comfort is this: when those committee members vote at Annual Conference on the “Issue of Homosexuality” in its many forms, they might picture my face, eager to talk about ministry and disappointed that we never made it past the sex. Go argue about Gay Issues, United Methodist Church, while I fight for my life.

The sick humor was not lost on me when I turned the key in the ignition, which lit up the clock that read 10:32am."

Comments

[Carol Scott & Dorothee Benz, MIND]

Yet another disciple of Jesus called by God and denied by the United Methodist Church. And the District Committee no doubt felt that they had no choice but to act as they did. Of course they had a choice--and they made one. Their choice was to be complicit in the church's discrimination and to perpetuate it. The members of the District Committee, so heart broken by the discrimiantory action they "had" to take, could have said, "We will not comply with this injustice. We will certify the canidacy of this faithful servent of God, whose ministry we know and respect, in defiance of the Church's Book of Discipline. We will not allow society's prejudices to trump God's call to ministry." They could have heeded Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words when he said, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws" (Letter from Birmingham Jail).

As long as we allow individuals to stand alone they will be picked off one by one. Only when we, as a united Church, speak out with one strong voice in opposition to the exclusion inflicted on us by man-made rules will those rules be overturned. Bishops, speak out for your conferences. Conferences, speak out for your clergy. Clergy, speak out for your flock. When we realize that we have not only a choice but an obligation, we will at last make change, and bring God's radically inclusive love to the United Methodist Church.