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The only thing I like better than a striking woman falling into my lap
is a striking topic doing the same. When I read that 75 LGBT clergy from
the United Methodist Church (UMC) had come out in an open letter to church
leaders, I joyously prepared to write a hymn of admiration.
Now my hymn is evolving into a dirge.
Things began so promisingly, when I read online how these ministers
from all over the country had waded into the denomination’s conflict
over homosexuality exactly a week before a meeting of UMC pooh-bahs.
A story on 365Gay.com declared most of the 75 weren’t out “until
now.” PlanetOut’s headline blared, “Gay Ministers Come
Out, Risk Defrocking.”
Well, color me ink-stained and chain me to the keyboard. I knew I had
some heroes to raise up here.
I asked the Reconciling Ministries Network, an organization working
for LGBT equality in the UMC and the force behind the letter, to send
me a copy. With it came the Network’s press release, emphasizing
the “great personal risk” the 75 were taking.
But a funny thing happened on my way to canonizing these clergy. I realized
the letter wasn’t signed.
It included no signatures. The 75 names are known only to the Network’s
attorney, who keeps them confidential, and to God, who presumably does
too.
Well, color me confused.
I emailed a couple of people at RMN and asked point-blank whether I
was missing something. If the names aren’t being released, how
will the church hierarchy, the press, or individual Methodists know who’s
come out? Where’s the vaunted danger to the signers? Is their fear
that the list of names could be demanded by a secular or religious court?
Stolen? Blown into the street by a vigorous air conditioner?
If I have missed something, I won’t know what it is till readers’ angry
emails arrive, because I haven’t heard back from the RMN folks
and my deadline is nigh. Both of which mean I get to proceed with my
rhetorical questions.
Is this bravery? Is this risk? Is this even coming out? If you affirm
you’re gay with invisible ink, are you out?
Enough of what I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. The
UMC is the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country, and
like other denominations, in the midst of a hot conflict over homosexuality.
Last Halloween the Judicial Council both defrocked out lesbian minister
Beth Stroud of Philadelphia and reinstated a Virginia pastor who had
been suspended for refusing a gay man membership in his congregation.
So for the conservative faction, life’s been a giggle.
Against this backdrop, the many LGBT people in UMC pulpits and pews
have some soul-searching to do. In their letter, the 75 clergy write
of the pain inflicted by the church’s official anti-gay policy,
but also make clear they don’t want to hightail it to another church “for
it is in the UMC that our spirituality is rooted.”
For this conflicted bunch, publishing this letter may well feel like
a radical act. Signing it publicly might feel like burning the flag and
a bra at the same time.
They’ve declared to the entire denomination that they’re
here and hurting, but in such a way that they won’t lose their
jobs as a result. It may look like a giant step to them; to me the step
looks chihuahua-sized.
Considering the UMC’s conservative path, I’m guessing these
75 will soon have to look again at their hearts, spirits and bank accounts
to see if they can walk the path of a Beth Stroud. God speed them — because
they don’t get up much velocity on their own.
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