Help needed: Missouri Methodist Annual Conference

[alspaughb]

I was recently elected the first openly gay laymember co-chair of the Missouri Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action. I could use some advice regarding a petition that is coming up at our Annual Conference this June in Springfield Missouri. We plan to have a table there along with our friends from Reconciling Ministries.

If you go to our conference website (www.moumethodist.org), you will see there are three petitions. The first establishes a Global AIDS Fund, the second supports an amendment to add non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in church membership to the Book of Discipline. The third puts the annual conference on record supporting limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Can Soulforce provide us with any assistance in defeating this marriage ban petition? Missouri passed its state constitutional marriage ban amendment in 2004 with a 71% majority, so it looks like we have an uphill battle on our hands. We need all the help we can get.

Bruce

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by alspaughb

. The third puts the annual conference on record supporting limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Can Soulforce provide us with any assistance in defeating this marriage ban petition? Missouri passed its state constitutional marriage ban amendment in 2004 with a 71% majority, so it looks like we have an uphill battle on our hands. We need all the help we can get.

Bruce

Hi Bruce, nice to see you here again after a long time.

What kind of help are you specifically looking for? Are you asking about a strategy of arguments against the ban? Or for network connections to other Methodists???

[HarmlessEccentric]

Have you connected with Reconciling Ministries? They've been doing this for a while, and can probably give advice or help connect you with other gay and affirming Methodists who will be at the conference.

I'm going to an Annual Conference this June, too, but it'll be my first one, so I don't have useful advice. I go to a Reconciling church, so I'll be there with gay and straight people from church who've done it before.

[Steven E. Webster]

Friend,

I'll give your situation in Missouri some thought before I respond more fully to it, but I just wanted to let you know there are other Methodists in Soulforce. I've was an openly gay lay member of Annual Conference in Wisconsin as far back as 1973, and I've served in that role several times since then. Votes on LGBT issues have always been close at our Annual Conference, but often they go our way. It really does help to be able to speak on the floor from a very personal perspective while also showing respect to the other members of Annual Conference.

We had a motion at our Conference several years ago having to do with the marriage issue, so I spoke to the Conference of my own experience as a gay person in a long term relationship. My partner and I had raised two daughters together. Legal recognition of our family would have been very important to us.

I find that when one speaks to a large Conference like that one needs to be gentle. Don't scold them. Let them know you believe they want to do the right thing. Let them know you respect whatever good they have done.

One logical argument you might make is to say that the Book of Discipline already takes a stance on this issue--against same-gender marriage. It accomplishes nothing for your Annual Conference to adopt the same position except to cause further divisiveness in the Conference and State and futher pain to LGBT persons.

That's it for now. I'll come back to this thread later.

Steven Webster
Madison, Wisconsin

[alspaughb]

We are looking for a network of people in Missouri who can help us as well as arguments against Petition #3. I am not a delegate, so I will not be able to speak on the floor. However, we are planning to have a table at Annual Conference as will Reconciling Ministries. We are already working with Reconciling Ministries since one of our members is the chair of RCN in Missouri. Unfortunately, the "progressive organizations" in our conference are very small, disorganized, and don't have much of a ground presence outside the two major cities. We are very young chapter with few members, and we still don't have a good idea who our supporters and opponents are. The conference itself is the result of a recent merger between the east and west portions of the state, and people from the two sides are still getting to know each other.

Petition #2 regarding adding non-discrimination to the book of discipline in church membership is one I helped draft based on a petition from Reconciling Ministries. The advisory council of Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia that I attend unanimously approved sending it to Annual Conference for us. The conference office is sending it forward with the equivalent of a "do pass" recommendation. They may break it up into two pieces: one would affirm the Council of Bishops, the other petitions the General Conference to amend the Book of Discipline. We would be fine with dividing the question assuming we can get both pieces passed.

I'm not optimistic that petition 3 can be defeated. The best I think we can hope for is extended debate on it to allow us to identify who our supporters and opponents are, and to get the marriage equality opponents to explain their line of reasoning. I'm wondering if a way to do that would be to offer a "compromise amendment" that would put the conference in support of holy union ceremonies as long as it was clear they were not marriages. Then neither side would be happy with the amended petition and the whole thing would go down to defeat. I doubt we can muster the votes to pass a "compromise amendment," but the debate on it might prove enlightening. We might be able to turn this into an opportunity to build our membership roster.

In effect, the Missouri Annual Conference is likely to say to LGBTs that we are happy you are becoming a member so we can take your tithes, but we are going to discriminate against you every other way. No wonder so few of my LGBT friends want anything to do with the church.

Bruce

[Zerbie]

Wow. Best of luck. You're obviously the expert on your community, and me having so little experience, I wouldn't dare to advise. But I see the wisdom in your potential strategy of "losing" forward by creating a 3rd option and maybe making the petition go away because of it. . . and using the ensuing drama to locate your supporters and build a network from there.

So all I have to say is, best of luck. I'm glad you're working on these issues. It takes all of us.

Hey - remember when we were emailing in the early stages of Arizona's campaign against the marriage amendment? We won, ya know! There were times when I wondered if we could ever pull it off. . . .

[Emproph]

Hey Bruce

Originally Posted by alspaughb

We are looking for ... arguments against Petition #3.

Would you like those in soundbite or essay form, or both?

I seem to recall some links around here somewhere...

~~
So that much we/I can help with. But if you're planning on taking on this issue for the first time, what's most important for you to decide and understand is how you're going to approach the idea of communicating such challenging information (challenging for them, that is).

If you've got the non-violent thing down, then your arguments should come across as heartfelt sincere questions. The trick is when you have to be sincerely heartfelt, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh... etc, times. I've gotten every attempted answer under the sun, but nary a legitimate one.

Just to get you started, here's a good example of some exchanges on the UMC boards (I go by the same name, Emproph).

Several other posts here that may also be helpful:

-The Adulterous "Sin" of Remarriage which It's my understanding the BOD approves of without condition.

-You'll also want to be familiar with one of the trickier "slippery-slope" arguments -- polygamy.

-As well as a little known clause in the Anglican church, if that applies. Though you may have to Google that last one (I did it once and the info is there).

~~
There's tons more info and I think the above is more than enough for someone new to the "debate," so the challenge really isn't about the argument, but about how clear and confident you feel about arguing it.

[Emproph]

AC 2007 - Petition 3

Subject: Support of Marriage

WHEREAS, the United Methodist Social Principles (Paragraph 161C) declare: “We support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman”;

WHEREAS, the Scriptures describe marriage between man and woman as symbolizing the love and faithfulness between God and His people;

WHEREAS, marriage is a divinely ordained institution that contributes to social harmony and the protection of children;

WHEREAS, marriage has been understood across cultures and across the centuries as the faithful union between man and woman;

WHEREAS, the 2006 sessions of two other annual conferences of the United Methodist Church (Dakotas and Holston) have adopted similar resolutions;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Missouri Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church hereby affirms the United Methodist stance on marriage and support laws in our state that protect the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

C'mon people, show me what you're made of..

[alspaughb]

Steven's suggestion is a good one. I have been in touch with Reconciling Ministries, and they are pointing me in that direction also. We will urge the delegates to table or vote down the amendment because marriage policies are already determined by the Book of Discipline which the Annual Conference has no power to amend. Thus the petition is redundant, divisive, and serves no productive end.

If I were a delegate, this is basically what I would say:

My concern with petition three is that it undoes the efforts of so many people across the conference to keep the United Methodist Church united. To pick a hot-button controversial issue like this and try to vote it up or down would only deepen our divisions. Church should not be about “wedge-issues.” It should be about how we can bring people closer to Jesus Christ.

Petition two concerned itself with how we can bring people into membership in the church. Petition three only threatens to cause controversy that will drive people away from the church. This comes at a time when we can ill afford to be driving anyone away.

The marriage policies for the denomination are already clearly defined by the Book of Discipline which this Annual Conference has no power to amend. At most, it could petition the General Conference for an amendment to the Book of Discipline or the Social Principles, but it does not do that. In fact, the petition is not saying that there is anything wrong or that needs to be changed in the Book of Discipline or the Social Principles. So I’m not sure what petition three can really accomplish besides a divisive debate over marriage equality versus traditional marriage.

The petition repeats language in the Social Principles and asks us to vote up or down whether we agree with it. If we were to start doing that with every position in the Social Principles, we would be here a very long time. If anything is to change regarding our denomination’s marriage policies, it will happen at the General Conference, not here. So what is the point of a divisive floor debate?


The conference floor is not a very good forum to work out a compromise that would be satisfactory to everyone. So I would urge the delegates to table the petition for now, but keep the dialog open.

A church divided against itself cannot stand. Let us use this Annual Conference to focus on the things that unite us not the things that divide us, and table petition three.

Bruce