General Conference 2008

Human Rights Campaign Responds to Discriminatory Measure Affirmed by Methodists

Colleagues in Christ,

You have all been in my heart and in my prayers (and in the prayers of my staff colleagues at HRC) over the last several weeks. Thank you for the powerful witness you have made for the expansive, inclusive, unconditional, extravagant welcome of Jesus Christ. Your work - from handing out pamphlets to making major strategic dicisions - has been a continuous prayer of both petition and praise to our Creator.

I am heartbroken, as are my colleagues at HRC, by the spiritual violence done this week to lesbian and gay people by the United Methodist Church, the denomination in which I once pastored, my parents were married, my nieces and nephews baptized, and out of which my beloved grandmother was buried last June.

Nevertheless, because of your hard work, the church has committed itself to working for civil rights protections for LGBT people and has explicitly rejected discrimination against transgender people. 

Therefore we expect and call on the Bishops of the United Methodist Church and local UMC pastors to speak out publicly in support of a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Mathew Shepard Hate Crimes Protection Act and we will be offering them many opportunities to do so, especially at Clergy Call 2009.

We will work with you to call the church to live into its commitment in tangible ways and thus to continue your work to make justice a reality with which the policies of the denomination will someday be reconciled.

You all are heroes to me and to my colleagues Sharon Groves and Kyla Bollens-Lund of the HRC Religion and Faith Program. We pray for your personal peace and health in gratitude for your witness on all our behalf.

Harry Knox, Director
Religion and Faith Program
Human Rights Campaign Foundation

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Press Release:

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, today responded to the United Methodist Church’s decision to reaffirm homophobic language which says homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and its failure to reverse a decision by the church’s Judicial Council to allow pastors to reject lesbian and gay people who seek membership in the church.  The vote, which passed by a margin of only 84 votes out of more than 900 cast, reaffirmed discriminatory language in the Discipline of the United Methodist Church and failed to counteract an earlier decision by the denominations judicial body.  The vote was taken on Wednesday, April 30, at the United Methodist General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.  Separately, the church voted against anti-transgender legislation and voted to oppose "all forms of violence or discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sexual practice or sexual orientation."

The following statement is by Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion & Faith Program:

"I am heartbroken, as are my colleagues at HRC, by the spiritual violence done to lesbian and gay people by the United Methodist Church, the denomination in which I once pastored, my parents were married, my nieces and nephews baptized, and out of which my beloved grandmother was buried last June.

Nevertheless, the church has committed itself to working for civil rights protections for LGBT people and has explicitly rejected discrimination against transgender people.  Therefore we expect and call on the Bishops of the United Methodists Church and local UMC pastors to speak out publicly in support of a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Mathew Shepard Hate Crimes Protection Act and we will be offering them many opportunities to do so, especially at Clergy Call 2009."

To learn more about the HRC Religion & Faith Program, visit: www.hrc.org/religion.

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Human Rights Campaign Responds to Discriminatory Measure Affirmed by Methodist Church
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Open Letter to UMC from The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

An Open Letter to my United Methodist Sisters and Brothers
Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work Director
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

In seminary, my systematic theology professor would always admonish us to remember that any talk of the crucifixion was almost blasphemous without an understanding of resurrection and any talk of resurrection without the crucifixion wasn’t Christian.  She said this because injustice and oppression are realities in our lives and in the lives of millions around the world.  If we forget this, we participate in the oppression.  But if we live without hope, we cannot name ourselves as followers of the One who was a doer and a bearer of justice and new life.  I struggle with this, but I think she is right.

It is this intertwining reality that comes to me as I sit in Minneapolis, Minnesota (the Northland where winter’s presence is still felt) gazing out at the rain-soaked day which promises of Spring, and read all the news of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church and its machinations about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks.

Although the resurrection threatens to break through in all kinds of places, yet the crucifixion holds sway in many:

• Sue and Julie were married today with the gathered body officiating—love, long-time commitment and faithful, faithful women covenanting in the midst of the Body of Christ.  A profound moment of resurrection.
• The voting delegates of the 2008 General Conference pass, by 12 votes, language that keeps in place a pastor’s ability to bar from membership, anyone he or she deems as unworthy of membership.  The particular case that gave rise to this was a pastor who barred a gay man from membership.  A shocking moment of crucifixion.
• Rev. Drew Phoenix and other transgender pastors are in good standing as the voting delegates defeat any legislation against transgender persons.  A moment of justice and resurrection.
• The voting delegates reaffirm the Church’s assertion that it can draw the line between love that is sanctioned and love that is rejected, by keeping in place the “incompatibility” clause.  That is to say, the Church dares to say that gay and lesbian love is not compatible with Christian teaching.  Brokenness and crucifixion.
• Heterosexism and homophobia are named for the sins they are and the Church is called to stand against them, both in the US and globally.  A moment of clarity and resurrection.

It seems the United Methodist Church refuses to give up its sinful clinging to crucifixion.  It seems the United Methodist Church yet holds to fear and hatred and to the blasphemy that it gets to decide where Love can be made known and where it can’t.  It seems the United Methodist Church still has miles to go before it can honestly claim the name of the Church of Jesus Christ.

And yet…

Love is ALWAYS stronger than death.  Resurrection threatens even the strongest crucifixion, even crucifixion perpetrated by the Church itself.

And so I give thanks for Sue and Julie, for Drew and RMN, for Affirmation and MFSA and for ALL the faithful folk.  You, as voting delegates and observers, as protesters and prayers, have held fast to the resurrection that is already changing death into life. 

Your faithfulness WILL transform the Church—it may be 2012 or 2016, but God has already won the victory.

Furthermore, your faithfulness gives hope to those of us who are your ecumenical, multi-faith and secular colleagues.  Your resurrection work inspires ours.

Two concrete examples of what this looks like:

Given the General Conference’s clarity around homophobia and heterosexism, we need to hold the United Methodist Church accountable. The UMC must now speak in favor of a federal transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act in this country.  And globally, it must speak against the imprisonment, persecution and execution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.

So our shared work continues.  May God bless us with resurrection perseverance and hope.

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel
Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work Director
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
810 W. 31st Street
Minneapolis, MN  55408
612.821.4397
rvoelkel@thetaskforce.org
Rebecca@welcomingresources.org
www.welcomingresources.org

A Soulforce Open Letter to Members of the United Methodist Church

On April 30, 2008, delegates to your General Conference meeting in Ft. Worth, Texas, voted to keep these words in their Book of Discipline: "The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching." Since 1972 United Methodists have used these words to deny lesbian and gay Methodists the rights of ordination and of marriage. As I write clergy can even use these words to deny lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christian the rights of membership in a local church.

For 36 years lesbian and gay United Methodists and their allies have worked tirelessly to replace these words with words of affirmation and acceptance. Once again a UMC General Conference has decided to keep those words in place even though they lead to intolerance, discrimination, suffering and even death. In his book "Why We Can't Wait," Martin Luther King, Jr. describes the 1963 struggle for civil rights that climaxed with legislation that ended segregation in the United States. Dr. King's book might have been titled, "Why We Didn't Wait," for he describes the "disappointments" that drove African-Americans into the streets - "disappointments" that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans know all too well.

We lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans are also disappointed in the Congress and the courts; disappointed in both political parties and their leadership; disappointed in the lack of change in the United States when European nations are granting their gay and lesbian citizens the full rights of citizenship; but especially we are disappointed in our churches for ignoring the empirical and biblical data that homosexuality is not a sickness to be cured nor a sin to be forgiven.

We, too, are tired of slow change and token changes, tired of defending ourselves against the claims of moral inferiority, tired of being victims of public laws and private humiliations, tired of intolerance and inequality, tired of suffering and dying just because we are different. The historic civil rights legislation of 1964 came just eight years after Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. It's been almost 40 years since the Stonewall protest in New York City and 36 years since the United Methodists decided that they "...do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching."

With all the changes we can celebrate, the real problem remains the same: the antigay religious teachings and actions that support intolerance and discrimination are still powerfully in place in the United Methodist Church and in most other Protestant and Catholic Churches. These antigay, religion-based teachings and actions have become the primary source of misinformation against sexual and gender minorities.

Most antigay initiatives and antigay court decisions (local, statewide and national) flow out of those same religious teachings. They give license for gay bashers to harass and harm us and motive for God's gay children to kill ourselves. Instead of changing minds and hearts, the 36 year war of words by leaders of the United Methodist Church has seen those antigay religious teachings harden into place. When will we realize that the antigay teachings cannot be "studied" or "debated" away? It will take another civil rights revolution to end them.

In "Why We Can't Wait" Dr. King makes it clear: "The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people." It is not the Institute for Religion and Democracy who have kept these tragic words in place. We can't condemn the Confessing Movement for this current dilemma. It is the silence of the good people of the United Methodist Church that is to blame.

But there is a way to end that silence without anger, hatred or violence. Guided by Gandhi's soul force principles, the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance, Dr. King led the people of Birmingham on a journey into justice that "stirred the conscience of the nation." We don't have to wait for a consensus at the next general conference. We can stand for justice now in ways that will empower us and change minds and hearts in the process.

We call on the United Methodist Bishops who know the tragic consequences of those words to refuse to enforce them or to resign in protest. Gandhi said "It is as much our obligation not to cooperate with evil as it is to cooperate with good." Every day a Bishop remains a Bishop he or she gives tacit support to the teachings that are killing us.

We call on the United Methodist clergy who know the tragic consequences of those words to take their stand against them. Welcome us. Marry us. Ordain us. Confront and condemn your fellow clergy who dare to use those words to deny membership to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christians. We ask you to take steps immediately to join the Reconciling Ministries Network and to make it known to your community that you are an Open and Affirming Congregation.

We call on members of the United Methodist Church to support your local congregation if it is (or is rapidly becoming) a Reconciling Congregation. But we call upon you to leave your church if your pastor continues to enforce the words that "...do not condone." At least refuse to pay your tithes and offerings until your church opens their doors to all people as Christ commands.

We call on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists, their families and friends, to refuse to finance your own oppression by giving your tithes and offerings to a church that refuses to see you as fully human. How can we continue to support a local congregation where the pastor insists that our relationships are impure or unholy and thus refuses to marry us or insists that we are not really called by God to serve the church and thus refuses to ordain us? How can we even think of staying in a congregation that denies membership to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender persons? And as you leave, take down that sign or banner that reads "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors." Store it until the United Methodist Church earns the right to use it once again.

Whatever you do to take your stand against those words in the UMC Book of Discipline, do something. We cannot wait for the next General Conference. While those words remain in place lives are being ruined, talents are being wasted, families are being divided and whole generations are being lost to the United Methodist Church. Even worse, how many people have given up their faith in Christ because His church has become a primary source of intolerance and discrimination? Don't wait for a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead us out of this wilderness. Whatever you decide to do, your simple act of conscience will make a difference.

One Sunday an African-American pastor was proclaiming those tragic words from the pulpit. "We do not condone..." "...Incompatible with Christian teaching..." "Sick and sinful..." Having heard enough, the gay organist stood up and said loudly, "There will be no more music today." With that he gathered up his music and walked out of the church. After a moment of breathtaking silence, one by one the choir followed. Just seven words and a brief walk down the aisle and a choir was empowered to do justice and a congregation was changed forever.

Rev. Dr. Mel White
President of the Board

Jeff Lutes
Executive Director

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A Soulforce Open Letter to Members of the United Methodist Church
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