LGBTQI delegates have invited their fellow delegates to an unprecedented discussion on the eve of the February 23-26 special General Conference of The United Methodist, which will be held in St. Louis. “Conversation at the Crossroads: Perspectives of LGBTQI Delegates” will be an interactive town hall-style forum designed to foster dialogue with those who are uniquely positioned as both the targets of official discrimination and elected members of the church’s governing body.
Less than 2% of the General Conference’s 864 delegates are LGBTQI-identified, yet the sole topic of this special legislative conference will be the fate and status of LGBTQI people in the church. Anti-LGBTQI discriminatory language has been a part of the UMC’s Book of Discipline – which defines the church’s doctrine and laws – since 1972.
UMNS Photo by Mike DuBose
Dorothee Benz
Dr. Dorothee Benz
“This town hall addresses a critical need that church leaders have failed to address. There can be no viable or lasting way forward for the United Methodist Church that is not forged with LGBTQI people,” said Dorothee Benz, a GC2019 delegate from the New York Conference. “For half a century the church has talked about us, debated us as a theological ‘issue,’ treated us as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved.’ The truth is queer folks are as much a part of the church as anyone else, and until cisgender, heterosexual delegates recognize that and recognize our humanity, this injustice will not be righted.”
Because church law bans “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from ordained ministry and defines them as “incompatible with Christian teaching,” only a tiny handful of LGBTQI-identified people have ever managed to be elected to General Conference, the only body with the authority to change the Book of Discipline. Effectively barred from representation, LGBTQI United Methodists have regularly protested at General Conference to try to influence the outcome. But despite widespread revolt throughout the church against its antiquated anti-queer rules, the General Conference has only increased its codified discrimination over the years.
The Feb. 22 town hall was organized by the New York Conference delegation to the General Conference. New York is the only of the UMC’s 147 regional bodies (called “annual conferences”) worldwide that chose to seat a new delegation for this special General Conference rather than sending the delegation elected for the previous regular quadrennial GC. It did so explicitly to seat as many LGBTQI people as possible.
Panelists will be Jen Ihlo, Alex da Silva Souto, Randall Miller, Cedrick Bridgeforth, Gregory Gross, Dorothee Benz, Karen Prudente
“Conversation at the Crossroads” is one of several efforts LGBTQI members of the church have organized ahead of upcoming GC as part of a #WithNotAbout campaign to begin to rectify the systemic exclusion of queer agency in the UMC’s discussions and decision-making. Activists have invited delegates to become prayer partners with an LGBTQI person; they have organized two blog series of LGBTQI voices; and they will be asking delegates to stop by their #ConversationCouch during General Conference to talk with queer people before they cast a vote deciding their fate in the church.
“Conversation at the Crossroads: Perspectives of LGBTQI Delegates” will be free and open to the press. More information and event registration is here.
Background
At the previous regular quadrennial meeting of the UMC’s General Conference in 2016, sustained protest by LGBTQI members of the church led to a suspension of further legislation that would add additional discriminatory language to the Book of Discipline. A commission, named the Commission on the Way Forward, was created to “to develop a complete examination and possible revision of every paragraph in our Book of Discipline regarding human sexuality.” The 32-member commission, appointed by the UMC’s Council of Bishops, included only three LGBTQI-identified members, all from a narrow and privileged portion of the queer community and the church (white, U.S. citizens, cisgender).
The Commission on the Way Forward drafted two plans for consideration at this special General Conference. (Their full report is here.) Both remove some discriminatory language but add or continue other discriminatory provisions against LGBTQI people. There is also a plan submitted by church conservatives that steeply increases the anti-queer nature of the Book of Discipline; and a plan submitted by the Queer Clergy Caucus that removes all the discriminatory language and adds nothing new.