General Conference – can we talk?

One more note about the gay communion servers I mentioned yesterday. There were a couple bishops who specifically went to the gay servers to show their solidarity.

It seems much of today was spent discussing and voting on "Rule 44" (named that because it followed Rule 43). During the 2012 General Conference a process called Holy Conferencing was tried, to get delegates from around the world to, you know, talk, to each other about contentious subjects. The only time delegates from part of the world actually meet those from another is at GC. Holy Conferencing did not go well. In violation of the rules of discussion some used it to verbally bully gay people.

So another process was created and ended up as Rule 44. It was meant as a variation on Robert's Rules of Order or standard parliamentary procedure. Again, delegates were to meet in small groups to discuss contentious issues, though the ground rules this time were to be different (though I don't know in what way). The question was whether Rule 44 was to be used.

It seems the "no" side needed to use "factually incorrect" information (I don't have details) to prevail, which it did by 57%. One complaint I found against it is that delegates weren't used to these kinds of discussions. The result is it is unlikely any discussing of the LGBT issues will be done. Delegates will be following the perceptions they brought from home.



I mentioned a couple days ago that 111 LGBT United Methodist pastors signed a letter announcing their coming out. In response, 500 church leaders from across various denominations wrote a letter in support. The signers are from the Presbyterian Church, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Disciples of Christ, Metropolitan Community Church (a specifically gay church), American Baptist, National Baptist, Alliance of Baptists, Reformed Church in America, and Unitarian Universalist Church.