General Conference – voted down in subcommittee

I'll start with the simple things:

A lunchtime rally at the convention center's plaza was about immigration. There were calls to add an item to the Social Principles: “We oppose all national immigration policies that separate family members from each other or that include detention of families with children.” There was also a call for a general stop to deportations.

Another demonstration in the plaza was a Climate Vigil. There were calls "to act in solidarity with all who struggle daily in the face of a changing climate" (though that sounds vague to me). Participants from Tonga, the Philippines, and Alaska (melting permafrost) told how climate change is affecting them.

Sam Hodges, writing for the United Methodist News Service, wrote about the bumpy start to General Conference. His evidence:

* There was the long time it took to decide what to do about Rule 44 (as discussed yesterday).

* In 2012 delegates were given placards of various colors to wave in the air when the wanted to attract the presiding bishop's notice to be chosen to speak on an issue to the full body. This year that has been replaced with a tablet system. But African delegates are having a hard time making them work and feel their voices aren't being heard during debate.

Bishop Elaine Stanovsky represents the Mountain Sky Area of the denomination. This covers Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

Stanovsky noted that among her African bishop colleagues, terrorism is a crucial issue, while her Filipino colleagues are preoccupied with global warming and the rights of native peoples. Meanwhile, U.S. bishops are grappling with rebellion in the clergy ranks over church law related to homosexuality.

She says no wonder we don't know how to work together. But this frustration may add impetus to reorganize to allow regions to do their own decision-making. There are five reorganization petitions before the delegates. Details of the five are here. The drawback is most require a change to the denomination constitution, so won't be implemented until 2020.

I welcome reorganization because most plans will allow the American branch to decide for itself how to handle the LGBT issues.

I've seen Will Green at Convos put on by Reconciling Ministries Network. He was also a lead protester at GC 2012. He's at GC 2016, though I don't know whether as a delegate or advocate. He wrote a couple posts on Facebook and Love Prevails asked him to include them in their blog. My summaries:

Post 1: He's asked bishops to do something about how poorly LGBT people are being treated. The usual reply: You need to know how "dysfunctional the council of bishops is." Translation: Bishops know how to work the system, work within the system, and be the system. They don't know how to change the system.

Post 2: The Human Sexuality Subcommittee voted down a petition affirming human diversity is a reflection of God. They voted down a petition on "Reducing Harm for LGBTQ Children and Youth." They voted down "A Third Way on Human Sexuality." This one would have changed the Book of Discipline so that such things as the definition of marriage would be something like, "Marriage is the commitment between two people … Historically this was between a man and a woman." That would allow each congregation to decide for itself.

Green wrote about the conservative strategy "to insert as many discriminatory statements in as many parts of the Discipline as possible." He concluded:

One thing I will say about the UMC in 2016 is that perhaps we have finally become so anti-GLBTQ that even the conservatives do not feel they have anything left to prove. They already know they run the church and can pass whatever they want. Liberals have been wasting time talking about process and tinkering with new rules that would allow us to share our stories in “safe” (sic) space. Since those conversations are now clearly and cleanly out of the way, they are now proceeding with destroying us.

I remember in 2012 when the key vote – the one about removing the phrase "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching" – went against us we held a protest. While we protested leaders of our movement met with the bishops to make sure none of the other human sexuality petitions came before the full plenary session. The goal was to make sure there was no additional harm. That tactic succeeded (with a big assist of a major restructuring plan being declared contrary to the denomination's constitution late in the last day). So 2012 was notable that no new LGBT restrictions were passed.

I note that the petitions Green commented on were designed to improve our position in the denomination. We may end up with a result like 2012. Alas, I'm sure petitions to heap on the restrictions are still to come up in committee.