Well, I decided I would go ahead and do this tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow. First of all, Happy Mother’s Day! I hope everyone was able to see their Moms today.
Let me say right up front that there is almost nothing funny in this post. Not that I ever write anything funny, but I just thought I should warn you. All of this hullaballoo may bore you to tears. If so, I apologize. I hope you’ll read it anyway. This is an issue that is important to me. I have strong feelings.
Be forewarned, I tried to stay away from my personal beliefs. I didn’t. Many of you will disagree with me. Maybe partially, maybe completely. On this issue, I’ll piss off half of you no matter which way I go. I’m okay with that.
Alright, let’s get on to the business at hand. I’m going to try to stay out of controversial territory, but I’ll make no promises. I guess I’ll start with the inspiration behind this entry. This first part may get boring. Don’t skip it, it’ll be important later.
I was looking at the website of a nearby United Methodist Church a few days ago. In the sidebar of the site there is a link titled “UM on Sexuality.” I had to click it. I wasn’t really all that surprised at what I found. The site contained a few sections from the United Methodist Discipline 1996. These sections, as you might guess, deal predominately with homosexuality.
The first section quoted talks about marriage. The paragraph ends with this sentence: “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” That has since been changed. The 2004 version of the Discipline replaces that sentence with this: “We support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” It was toned down a little, but still has the same basic meaning.
The second quoted section deals with sexuality. This section addresses topics sexuality as a gift from God; decrying exploitative sexual expressions including abusive actions; denunciation of the commercialization of sex; condemnation of sexually exploiting children; and a call for the Church to promote sexual education. The last paragraph deals with homosexuality and the UM stance on the subject. I’ll get to that later.
The next section is titled “Equal Rights Regardless of Sexual Orientation.” Here’s that section from the 2004 Book of Discipline:
Certain basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons. We are committed to supporting those rights and liberties for homosexual persons.
We see a clear issue of simple justice in protecting their rightful claims where they have shared material resources, pensions, guardian relationships, mutual powers of attorney, and other such lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships that involve shared contributions, responsibilities, and liabilities, and equal protection before the law.
Moreover, we support efforts to stop violence and other forms of coercion against gays and lesbians. We also commit ourselves to social witness against the coercion and marginalization of former homosexuals.
Do you see the irony? Or is it hypocrisy? We want everyone to have equal rights, but we don’t think gays should be allowed to marry? I guess the opening sentence tries to get around that by talking about “basic human rights and civil liberties.” Don’t we also give criminals basic human rights and civil liberties? I’m not trying to open up a debate on Gay Marriage. I’m not taking a stance (here and now anyway) one way or the other. My issue? How can we claim to support equal rights for gays and lesbians and in the same document decry their right to marry?
At this year’s General Conference, one of the major issues (as well as the last 4-5 GC meetings) was homosexuality. Let me back up a second. General Conference is held every 4 years. This is a meeting of elected delegates from United Methodist churches around the world. One of the major roles of this delegation is voting on alterations to The Book of Discipline, which states, to put it simply, what we as United Methodists believe.
There were several proposed changes dealing with sexual orientation. Almost an entire day was spent voting on such issues. One of these proposals was to change the language on the UMC’s stance regarding sexual orientation. Here is the current paragraph that I alluded to earlier form the 2004 book:
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, and we will seek to live together in Christian community. 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.
There was a push to adopt new language that stated, in part, “faithful and thoughtful people who have grappled with this issue deeply disagree with one another; yet all seek a faithful witness.” The report also asked UM Churches “to refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices as the Spirit leads us to new insights.” The delegation voted down this “majority report” and the existing language was retained.
I was going to stay away from my personal beliefs on the issue, well, like I said earlier, I have strong feelings about this. I am appalled and disappointed by the Church’s reaction to and treatment of gays and lesbians. It saddened me even further to see no action taken to remove what I see as a hateful, judgmental sentence. “[We] consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.” In other words, you’re doomed to Hell and there’s no hope for you; unless you change.
What if you know you can’t change? What if you’ve tried to change, to no avail? What if you’ve spent countless hours praying that God would take away these feelings and countless more weeping when they persisted? What then? I guess there really is no hope for you. That’s not the God I know. The God I know does not create situations in which there is no hope. The God I know does not create a life that cannot be redeemed. The God I know does not turn his back on his children. And neither should we. What are we supposed to do? Love. Love God. Love our neighbors. Love our enemies.
It’s late, I’m tired. My thoughts are running together and getting harder to flesh out. I may carry this further later, but for now I’ll end it there. If you disagree, I invite you to reply and tell me why. Let’s discuss. Discussion is good. If you agree, you’re welcome to reply also.
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