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A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
4:00 P.M. ET April 18, 2012
Julie Bruno (left) and Susan Laurie lead a procession through the Fort
Worth Convention Center, site of the 2008 United Methodist General
Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, on the way to their marriage ceremony
in this May 2008 file photograph.
View in Photo Gallery
During a lecture at Emory University, a scholar told a group of young
students, “Jesus doesn’t say a lot positive about marriage. In fact he seems to
suggest we might be better off without it.”
Luke Timothy Johnson, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and
Christian Origins at United Methodist-related Candler School of Theology, was
examining the Gospel of Matthew in his lecture on “Jesus and the Law of Marriage
and Divorce” last February.
“Jesus said sometimes you have to become a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom
of heaven. I think that advocating celibacy was something of a shock to my young
listeners,” he said. “By trying to be an advocate for Matthew’s text, I tried to
say that this Christian thing is not just a matter of domestic tranquility or
keeping the law. It’s pretty risky business. It’s pretty demanding. And pretty
shocking.”
If Jesus didn’t have a lot to say on the issue of marriage or sexual
orientation, United Methodists have said volumes. Throughout church history,
delegates to the denomination’s top lawmaking body have always ended their
quadrennial assembly leaving intact the statement “marriage is between one man
and one woman.”
At the 2012 global meeting April 24-May 4 in Tampa, Fla., the question will
be asked and decided once again.
What does Scripture say?
There are conflicting opinions over what the Bible teaches about sexual
orientation.
Matthew Vines, a 21-year-old gay college student, recently delivered a speech
at College Hill United Methodist Church, Wichita, Kan., on his “thousands of
hours of research and study” on what the Bible says about homosexuality.
He examines six verses in the
Bible: Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, Genesis 19:5, 1
Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10.
Vines said those verses have proven to be the end of the road for many
gays trying to gain acceptance from Christian parents, friends and pastors.
The Rev. Karen Booth, author of
“Forgetting How to Blush: United Methodism’s Compromise with the Sexual
Revolution,”
said people in favor of same-sex marriage refer to those scriptures as
“clobber passages.”
“I believe that they mostly contain very good news, especially 1 Cor. 6,” she
said. In her book, Booth writes what constitutes God-honored sex and sexuality is
not based on a “handful of negative restrictions.
“Through the stories of the creation of humankind, God’s original intention for
human sexual relations is revealed: a loving, sacrificial and potentially
procreational expression of the ‘one flesh’ male/female marital bond.
“Sexual acts that occur outside that sacred boundary, whether same-sex or
opposite-sex, are immoral—grievous to God and detrimental to human beings.”
Vines’ research leads him to believe God would not deny him or any other gay
person the possibility of a loving relationship and a family.
In his remarks to the congregation at
College Hill, he examines each scripture in
great detail.
“The Bible does not condemn loving gay relationships,” he said. “It is not
opposed to justice and equality for gay people, and, in fact, it supports their
equal right to marry. Scripture can prove to be one of our greatest allies, if
only we’re reading it correctly.”
Booth is an ordained elder in the Peninsula Delaware Annual (regional)
Conference and director of
Transforming
Congregations. In her book, she carefully
considers Scripture and chronicles the history of homosexuality in society and
in the denomination. She said she was supportive of same-sex marriage for most of
her young adulthood. Her heart began to change when a former seminary friend —
who had been openly gay — told her how Jesus had transformed him.
That conversation was a turning point, Booth said, and she began her own years
of scientific and biblical research and study.
“I think people have little to no choice in their experience of same-sex
attractions, though they have a choice regarding how they personally respond to
those attractions,” she said.
“I believe homosexual behavior — same-sex intimate behavior — is sinful. That (behavior) can be
repented of, redeemed and healed, in other words ‘overcome.’ Often, but not
always, the same-sex feelings line up with the behavior change.”
Attitudes and laws
Gay marriage has been on the minds of many in the United States and
around the world. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the
issue of whether gays can be legally married shows no sign of abating.
“A Contentious
Debate,” says the issue has been decided in various ways in courts and legislatures in recent years.
At this time, six states and the District of Columbia recognize
same-sex marriage while 39 have laws limiting marriages to a man and a woman,
according to the
National Conference of
State Legislatures. The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Sweden and
Norway have legalized gay marriage.
Conferences propose change
In The United Methodist Church, more than a
dozen U.S. annual (regional) conferences are petitioning the 2012 General Conference on the church’s ban on non-celibate,
gay clergy and its prohibition against clergy officiating at same-sex unions.
Some
propose striking the words “man and woman” from the definition of marriage and
adding “two loving adults.” Others want to retain the wording already in the
United Methodist Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book.
In May 2011, the United Methodist Judicial Council, the denomination’s top court,
upheld the church’s prohibition against same-sex marriage and
ruled that the New York Annual (regional)
Conference’s resolution to allow clergy to “marry at their own discretion” was
neither “valid nor constitutional.”
“The church has a long tradition of maintaining its standards apart from those recognized or permitted by any
civil authority,” the decision said. “The church’s definition of marriage as
contained in the Discipline is clear and unequivocal and is limited to the union
of one man and one woman.”
In June 2011, 70 Minnesota United Methodist clergy signed a statement saying they would
“offer the grace of the Church’s blessing
to any prepared couple desiring Christian marriage,” including same-sex couples.
The Rev.
Amy DeLong, a lesbian clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual (regional)
Conference was
acquitted of being a
“self-avowed practicing homosexual” but found guilty of celebrating a same-sex
union in a public church trial in June 2011.
Foundry United Methodist Church, led by the Rev. Dean J. Snyder,
launched a campaign “Opening
Doors to Equality
in February. The goal is to approve a resolution at General Conference to allow
clergy “to perform the pastoral care called for in their ordination vows and
ensure that all who enter the doors of a United Methodist Church experience the
unconditional love of Jesus.”
On March 23, the Oklahoma Annual (regional) Conference announced 62
clergy and 203 United Methodist church members had signed a statement in support
of marriage equality and called for "full equality and inclusion to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
people in the life of the church.”
Proposals to agree that people of faith disagree also have been
rejected by past General Conferences.
At the end of the 2008 General Conference the church agreed that
“all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God” and
called United Methodists to “seek to live together in Christian community,
welcoming, forgiving and loving one another as Christ has loved and accepted
us.”
*Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for the young adult content team
at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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