mournful - updated

For those of you who are unaware of the language that was passed yesterday, I wanted to post it. The original petition was this:

¶161 G) Human Sexuality. We recognize that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We believe persons may be fully human only when that gift is acknowledged and affirmed by themselves, the church, and society. We call all persons to the disciplined, responsible fulfillment of themselves, others, and society in the stewardship of this gift. We also recognize our limited understanding of this complex gift and encourage the medical, theological, and social science disciplines to combine in a determined effort to understand human sexuality more completely. United Methodists, along with other Christians, have struggled to find principles for applying traditional teachings to contemporary understandings of human sexuality.We recognize that sexuality is part of the larger human mystery, to be received and acknowledged in grateful responsibility. We reject all sexual expressions that damage or destroy the humanity God has given us. We deplore all forms of the commercialization and exploitation of sexual relations, with their consequent cheapening and degradation of human personality. We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation or use of children by adults and encourage efforts to hold perpetrators legally and financially responsible. We call for adequate protection, guidance, and counseling for children thus abused. We believe that the Church family should support all families in providing age-appropriate education regarding sexuality to children, youth, and adults. We challenge all members of our community of faith to commitment, integrity and fidelity in their sexual relationships.We know that all are God’s children and of sacred worth; , yet we have been, and remain, divided regarding homosexual expressions of human sexuality. Faithful, thoughtful people who have grappled with this issue deeply disagree with one another; yet all seek a faithful witness. We continue to reason and pray together with faith and hope that the Holy Spirit will soon bring reconciliation to our community of faith. The fire in our disagreements points to a deeper human mystery than we knew. We believe that the Spirit has brought our collective conscience to acknowledge this mystery more honestly, and to make our claims with greater humility before God and our neighbors. We therefore ask the Church, United Methodist and others, and the world, to refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices until the Spirit leads us to new insight. In the meantime, let us seek to welcome, know, forgive, and love one another as Christ has accepted us, that God may be glorified through everything in our lives.

The petition that was passed as follows: G) Human Sexuality-We affirm that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We call everyone to , responsible stewardship of this sacred gift.
Although all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only within the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. We deplore all forms of the commercialization, abuse, and exploitation of sex. We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of children and for adequate protection, guidance, and counseling for abused children. All persons, regardless of age, gender, marital status, or sexual orientation, are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured and to be protected against violence. The Church should support the family in providing age-appropriate education regarding sexuality to children, youth and adults. We affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God. All need the ministry of the church in our struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship that enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self. The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching. We affirm that God’s grace is available to all. We will live together in Christian community, welcoming, forgiving, and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us. . We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons.


So this is the wording that is now in our social principles. If you notice, the UMC now condones marital rape, and does not support sexual education through the church or schools, only through the family. This is oppressive to ALL God’s children, not just the LGBT community. The only ‘good’ thing about this is that the last sentence was reinstated. So, the UMC does implore families and churches to not reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. This statement does not jive with the rest of this petition. It is hypocritical and contradictory. Families and friends can accept their family members and friends, but the church doesn’t?? WHAT?? What message is this sending? To me, it’s a conflicting, hurtful, fearful message. The original petition was beautiful. You did not have to agree with homosexuality to support that statement. By passing this minority report as a principle, the UMC has kicked the LGBT community to the curb and beaten us while we’re there. A more beautifully worded response was posted by Sue Laurie on the RMN website at:http://www.generalconference2008.org/2008/05/martyrs.html
I am hurting. We all are hurting. I had to read symbolism into the cloudy skies that greeted us this morning. I have to hope for a brighter future. We were supposed to be building a future of hope at this General Conference. Instead, the plenary attempted to block this hope with fear, and hatred. We will prevail. And we will be back in 2012.

I also want to lift up the joys of this week in the despair: the worship service Sunday, the anti-homophobia and heterosexism petition passed, the Judiciary Council members, the defeat of anti-trans petitions, and the wedding tomorrow. We are the church. And we are here to stay.

Weeping May Come...

Weeping may come, but joy comes in the morning...

This morning as I awoke, these words from Scripture ran through my mind as I wondered if that dawn of joy would ever come. Yesterday our United Methodist Church passed legislation that further strengthened the discriminatory policies of the Church against gay and lesbian persons through both a revision of our statement on human sexuality and a vote on membership.

Rejecting a petition that sought to acknowledge our differences concerning the issue of homosexuality, the Church chose to ignore the very real and pressing divisions within the denomination and instead revised our statement on human sexuality to both strengthen the condemnatory language toward gay and lesbian persons and remove significant statements on the complexity of sexuality, sexual abuse in marriage, and age appropriate sex education for children and teens. In addition, the General Conference reaffirmed controversial Judicial Council Decision 1032 which supported the right of a pastor to deny membership to a man on the basis of his sexuality by refusing to pass legislation which would have clarified the role of the pastor in accepting members.

At the end of the votes, advocates for full inclusion stood, singing "Jesus Loves Me," in affirmation of God's love for all despite the actions of the Church. The sobs and moans of those in pain echoed in the halls as people grieved the brokenness of of Church body. In the midst of the pain, it all seemed overwhelming. How could our episcopal leadership allow such grievous breach of the rules that silenced debate and manipulated the votes? How could our Church turn the clock 50 years back on our statement of human sexuality? How could our Church vote us out so callously?

Gay and lesbian people were not the only people who loss this day. Rather, it was the Church that loss as it was broken by the tactics of fear and division. As Don Messer has said,

“The exclusion of homosexual persons from the life, leadership, and rites of the Church threatens the very nature of the Church itself. It not only causes irreparable harm to the children of God but also to the Body of Christ itself. Each time a person is rejected or ejected from the “koinonia” fellowship of United Methodism, a new wound is inflicted and the Body of Christ is broken once again.”

This morning the brokenness of the Body was incarnated as delegates walked past bodies...gay, lesbian, bisexual ,transgender and straight persons who literally laid their bodies down in an effort to remind the Church of the wounds it inflicted...wounds that went unnoticed as the conference continued "business as usual."

But, it was not business as usual. Faithful advocates for full inclusion were invited into the General Conference floor to witness to the pain and brokenness that is our Church Body in a liturgical ritual of lament. Shrouding the communion table and singing "Were You There," the Church was reminded of the way in which the Body of Christ had been broken through a breach in holy conferencing and the exclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight persons. Delegates and advocates alike wept as they moved forward to place a black cloth on the altar in solidarity with those the Church harms.

Weeping may come....but joy comes in the morning.

While the ritual was one of morning, a new proclamation broke forth from the depths of pain claiming a resurrection within the Church of faithful disciples willing to be in full ministry with all God's children. To see this demonstration, click here.

As I finally find my way to sleep after these two exhausting days, I know that joy shall come in the morning. Watch our blog for updates...

Skunked by a Fox

There are many ways to describe what happened today... after all, many things happened to day.
Sitting here now though at 12:00 am, I have a deep, deep sadness. The church basically maintained it's teaching on homosexuality although it did make it a little worse, but from this distance I can't even acknowledge that. We had a beautiful proposal, a proposal that says the truth and would have easily won the majority vote. Unfortunately, we never got to vote on that. In fact, we never got to debate it either. Thanks skilled directing by Bishop Whittaker, neither the minority nor the majority reports never received any debating. Instead we pretended to try on amendments for about ninety minutes (which were really speeches that were pretending to be amendments) and voted and voted and voted on amendments. Then, when frustration and fatigue had set in, the bishop maneuvered a delegate through the process of suspending the rules and calling all that was before us (which of course was the adoption of the minority report). This was all narrated by Rev. Eddie Fox, director of world evangelism for the church, who probably preached for close to thirty minutes in all. It was the same shtick he always gives at General Conference. I pray that this will be his last appearance at General Conference. I'm sure that comes across as harsh, but I've put up with far too much dishonesty today to not tell the truth. This hurts.
Thankfully, because I wasn't going to speak to the petition (we only were supposed to get three speeches and we had people lined up) I was called on to speak to the floor on one of the amendments. This was in the series of debate when people were trying to make substantive alterations. I know that the tactic is technically legit, but it's really deceptive to do this sort of thing at a church conference that is supposed to be based on the idea of holy conferencing. Anyway, I let people know that I'm gay and said that if our concept of church is so fragile that the only way it can stay together is to sacrifice gay and lesbian people than we have deep issues. When I got back to my desk, I had received six text messages from people who were watching! And then the notes started coming from other delegates. I know they didn't vote with me, but some of them were simply amazing.
After the vote, the witness team stood in the stands and slowly by slowly the supportive delegates did too. One voice broke out with "Jesus Loves Me" and soon we were all singing. The business of the conference continued as the secretary read a new Judicial Council ruling that seemed to go on for about fifteen minutes. We just kept on singing. Check out the stream on umc.org.
We lost every other important debate from there on in. Marriage, ordination, and "membership" all fell one after another. The membership piece is the most difficult one, we didn't pass language that says homosexuals can't be members, we did pass language that says the pastor has sole discretion about whether or not a new member can join. If the pastor is homophobic, they have the right to deny membership. (This is all that decision 1032 of the Judicial Council and refers to para. 214)
Okay though, let's get it together. Even though General Conference is mostly composed of people who are comfortable with negative language about gay and lesbian people* (see below), the church is not falling. In fact, the big picture is that we're moving in the right direction. We just haven't arrived yet with the understanding of sexuality. We'll get there.
I'll share the two really great pieces of news from the morning that I'm sure you won't believe. First of all, two drastically trans-phobic pieces of legislation failed by about 30 to 70%. I spoke to that one two with the argument that we would be creating a new category for discrimination.
Secondly, we passed a resolution that said we are opposed to homophobia and heterosexism in what ever forms they present themselves... I know, it's hilarious. This petition also allows the General Board of Church and Society to resource parts of the church with tools to help combat these tools. And GBCS will be more than happy to take that opportunity (especially since the local church lost it's authority to do any sex ed with the new 161.g .... sigh....)
So today was also my birthday. I got lots of cards and messages from people I love, which was great.
We have over 120 calendar items left to consider before Friday night at 12:00. It is clear that we will not get to the overwhelming majority of these (I think we did about ten today). I suppose what we'll do is create a tabled calendar and just start dumping things there.



* - commentators in the notes section of this blog stated that my original words here were hurtful and nasty. I'm definitely able to live without what I wrote so I've altered my original. Thanks for the feedback...