A UMNS photo illustration with photos by Mike DuBose, Kathleen Barry and Clayton Childers
Court Rings Illustration
Surveys show United Methodist views on church teachings related to homosexuality before and after the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land.
Now that I have had time to reflect and pray on the decision by the Judicial Council – (and to have had a couple of conversations with some persons close to the Judicial Council) – I want to share some reflections.
First, let me thank my dear colleague, Sunny Ahn, who in walking part of my journey with me when I was a Counsel for the Church, always reminded me that I had a "pastor's heart" and was happy that I could show that as we dealt with the problem at hand. When I get down, I remember Sunny's helpful words. Thank you, Sunny.
Second, let's remember some facts.
1. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Members of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops have been open in saying that they already have received "a number" of complaints against Bishop Oliveto, about which they have already put Bishop Oliveto "under review." The good news is that many Bishops have complaints filed against them, and somehow those complaints magically become confidentially "resolved." Bishop Oliveto is still a Bishop, still under assignment as Bishop of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area, and if the College of Bishops was going to put her under a "60-day suspension," they could have and would have already done so. Nothing the Judicial Council said has changed any of that.
2. I'm one of the guys who plays with Church Law on a regular basis, and I've lost track of how many "Amicus Curiae" briefs I've submitted to the Judicial Council over the years. What I do know is that the Judicial Council is caught among three factors: its precedents, all the way back to 1940; decisions of the General Conference, not all of which make a lot of sense; and the conflicting desires and beliefs of a church which has the misbegotten belief that we can function as a "worldwide church."
If one reads its Decision 1341 carefully, in its entirety, objectively, the Judicial Council members were trying to tread a very narrow path among all three limitations the church has placed upon them. There were three camps arguing:
a) those who didn't think the Judicial Council had the right to answer a question from the South Central Juridiction that affected only the Western Jurisdiction. (I was from that camp.)
b) those who believe that our anti-gay rules in the church amounts to "holy writ," and think that the UMC is condoning "sin" if we have LGBT clergy.
c) a lot of folks who just wish the issue would go away and let them be the local churches in which, to quote Paul Tillich, "they live and move and have their being."
Some of the precedents the Judicial Council used were ones that I lifted up in my brief, a few were ones lifted up by the South Central Jurisdiction "official" brief and other briefs in support of it, and a couple were precedents that had not been mentioned in any of the briefs. (I received copies of many of the briefs, and probably read about 250 pages of them.)
3. The only NEW thing that the Judicial Council said that sets a precedent was an expansion of the definition of what constitutes a self-avowal that one is a "practicing" homosexual: That if a gay or lesbian couple gets legally married with a marriage license, that license constitutes a self-avowal. Period.
Lesson: if gay or lesbian couples want to become legally married, instead of getting a marriage "license," they should go to their county clerk and get a "Confidential Registry of Marriage." This was a kind of document that was developed to deal with a problem of couples who had been living in their communities as if they were married, when they weren't, and then got legally married, only to see their names published in the local newspaper that published the names of all people in their community who had taken out marriage licenses! Remember all those ads, a few decades ago, where "Marriage Chapels" or Notaries Public would say "Get Married Confidentially--no blood test required"? That's what all that was about. It still exists in all states. If one gets married under a Confidential Registry of Marriage, it isn't open to the public without a court order.
4. We now are under the reality that there are just about as many United Methodists OUTSIDE the United States as there are INSIDE the United States. Almost all those folks in the Central Conferences are grossed out at the idea of two persons of the same gender having sex with each other. Plus, they believe they are following the Bible. Five of the nine members of the Judicial Council are now from the Central Conferences. I'm encouraged that one of them, the President of the Judicial Council no less, was one of the two who dissented. The other one was the sister-in-law of Bishop Scott Jones, who most certainly is not one of our denomination's liberals. As long as we try to be a "worldwide church," we are going to run into problems like this. It's a new day for those of us who are more liberal in the UMC.
5. Bishop Oliveto is not, as she said this last Tuesday, the first gay Bishop we have had. One of them was married and closeted---he sadly died of AIDS. Others are ones who have remained single and celibate, or extremely discrete, and were not given the privileges that the rest of us have: to be open about the ones whom we love, and with whom we live. Bishop Oliveto is one who admitted, publicly, that she, as both a citizen of the United States and as a child of God, has the right and the honesty, to live the open kind of life we wish all our clergy could have.
6. What concerns me far more about this decision than how it affects Bishop Oliveto are some incidents that have occurred out of the generous hearts of some of our Bishops. Several have been going to the gay clergy and their partners in their areas, and have pushed them to get legally married. The Bishops figured that if they did that, and ruled that clergy who are not married may not live with another person of the same gender (particularly in parsonages!), the bishops would be able to protect the gay clergy by saying they were "celibate in singleness" and celebrating "fidelity in marriage." Under this decision, all clergy who followed the guidance of their bishops are now under far more danger of being charged with violation of the Discipline than they were before. That is an issue worthy of the concern of all of us who believe that God is quite free to call to the ordained ministry people whom God created to be homosexual.
Thus endeth my reflections. Give me a moment to put on my asbestos suit, and then you all can reply as you see fit!
The Rev. Thomas Griffith is a retired clergy member of the California-Pacific Annual Conference.