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Incompatibility Part 3-A
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Incompatibility Part 3-B
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Incompatibility Part 3-C
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Incompatibility Part 3-D
Please see all four cartoon panels above
Welcome back to A History of Incompatibility. We’re exploring the historical origins of the controversial language over homosexuality in The United Methodist Book of Discipline. This is Part 3, so if you’d like to start from the beginning, go to Part 1 and Part 2.
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In 1972, The United Methodist Church was only four years old, and eager to find its identity after mergers had made it more racially, geographically, and theologically diverse. Our story today picks up right after a vote was made to gloss over a sentence ensuring the human and civil rights of homosexuals, changing that word to “all persons.” But there was confusion over whether that vote completely removed the word “homosexuals” from the language everywhere in the report, so the conversation opened back up. A delegate from the Philippines, Victor Vinluan, raised an amendment to add a statement: “We do not recommend marriage between two persons of the same sex.” Walter Muelder argued against this, asserting that this amendment fell very clearly on one side of an issue that the church was not in agreement on, and that it would be wise to keep broad language, which he called “the plea for compassion and justice,” rather than making prejudicial principles (either for or against homosexuality) that would impact the entire future of the church. But the amendment passed, and was quickly followed by another amendment to subtly change the word “support” to the word “care” in a different statement so that it would not appear that the church “supported” the gay lifestyle.
A lay delegate from Southwest Texas, Don Hand, was watching the conversation unfold and recalls feeling uneasy and concerned that this issue would split the church. In a 2014 memoir article, Hand says he thought that all of the proposed language around sexuality “reflected the ideology of the sexual revolution of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in its embrace of recreational sexual intercourse as a means of personal gratification and a civil right. As such, it was a serious departure from the teachings of the Christian tradition that risked conforming the moral standards of the Church to the licentious behavior of the world.”
And here’s where we get a flashback. Just one year earlier, Don Hand had witnessed several unprecedented disruptions to United Methodist gatherings. The Rev. Wil Shaefer was defrocked when he was discovered having a live-in mistress with him and his wife at the parsonage. Shaefer boldly defended his love for both women (though his wife would soon divorce him), and in an act of protest, marched before the conference business session holding his ordination papers like a bouquet, lit them on fire, and placed them dramatically on the Bishop’s table. “Here, Bishop Slater, are my credentials!” to which the bishop casually replied, “Thank you, Wil,” and Shaefer marched right back out. Hand witnessed all of this from a front row seat and was truly shocked that a pastor would act this way.
At an earlier clergy meeting, the Rev. Gene Leggett announced that he was gay, asking the clergy to “deal publicly with what you know privately.” His wife had left him five years earlier when she discovered he had been sleeping with men. At that time, he was appointed to the Dallas Theatre Center where he started The House of the Covenant ministry for gay people. When Gene came out publicly, he assumed that everyone already knew he was gay, but most of the clergy did not. Though there was no disciplinary language excluding gay people from the ministry at the time, it was decided that he was “unacceptable” for ministry, and was brought before the Annual Conference for a clergy-only vote to permanently locate him, meaning he could never serve as a United Methodist minister again. News of this quickly spread among the gay community, who had come to love Leggett and see him as their pastor.
Things got pretty exciting when the Gay Liberation Front announced its presence at the Southwest Texas Annual Conference, and proclaimed that no further business would happen until the church agreed to their list of demands. They began reading 10 demands that were a mixture of real talking points and radically extreme statements meant to provoke controversy. On one hand, you had a demand “that the church cease to define gay people by their sexuality alone,” which makes sense, and then you also had, “that the church cease to reinforce the nuclear family,” or “that the church stop its perpetuation as an economic entity.” Members of the conference jeered them, and felt that the GLF had come wearing clothing designed to provoke outrage (such as mesh shirts and purses). To everyone present, it seemed like this group was just using the occasion to prove a point, not necessarily to help Leggett in any real way. And so Leggett made a final defense, but was voted out (though it was very close, a margin of 144 to 117). The crowd cheered and applauded, but one older minister was heard saying, “Don’t applaud, this is the saddest day in the history of our annual conference.” Two ministers turned in their credentials in support of Leggett, but the next day they changed their minds and got their credentials back.
Members of the GLF continued to show up to business meetings and worship services to disrupt and protest, until Don Hand, lay delegate, couldn’t take it anymore. He quietly walked over to two gay protestors and whispered, “It would be well if you would sit down and be quiet.” His action was noticed by the crowd, and he attributes this as the reason he was elected to be a delegate to the 1972 General Conference, where he would contribute the language of incompatibility that has shaped The United Methodist Church for over 50 years and is now at the heart of our church split.
Come back next week as we return to 1972 and watch the incompatibility clause enter the Book of Discipline. Since I began writing this story, I’ve received so many helpful articles, research papers, and primary documents to help me tell the story. If you want a deep dive in, you should check them out.
The Journal of the 1972 General Conference of The UMC. (Start on page 456).
Don Hand: Homosexuality and the 1972 Social Principles (Written by Hand himself, 2014).
The Saddest Day: Gene Leggett and the Origins of the Incompatibility Clause (2017).
Homosexual Minister is Ousted By Southwest Texas Methodist (NYT, June 3, 1971).
Texan’s Compromise at root of Methodist Rift (Houston Chronicle, 2020).