MAY WE STAND FOR LOVE?

 I am sitting with one more email from a queer person who is scared about the stated intent of at least one Supreme Court member and countless Republicans who want to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which gave LGBTQ+ couples the legal right of marriage. They are asking if they should move up their wedding plans in the hopes their marriage can be grandfathered in should such a ruling occur.

For those who are not LGBTQ+ and are married, can you imagine what it feels like to have the love you share, which brings you so much joy and bears so much fruit in the world, outlawed? Can you imagine being stripped of the rights you share as a married couple (which include but are not limited to):

• Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
• Making medical decisions if your spouse becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

• Making burial or other final arrangements.
• Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
• Receiving a share of marital property if you divorce.

• Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
• Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
• Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
• Obtaining priority if your spouse needs a conservator--that is, someone to make financial or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.
• Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
• Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
• Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
• Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.
• Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
• Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
• Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
• Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

• Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
• Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

(from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html)

 

I grieve a society (and a church) that fails to honor and support love. I grieve couples that feel an urgency to marry because they fear they might lose the chance to do it in the future. I grieve couples that have built a life together that cannot rest in the security legal marriage provides but must yet again defend their love from attack.

In a world so divided by hate, may we stand together for love?

What a Difference a Decade Makes!

What a difference a decade makes!

Ten years ago today, I received a call from one of my parishioners who gave me the most surprising news: the City and County of San Francisco was issuing marriage licenses! He barely took a breath before informing me that he and his partner were on their way to City Hall and then asking if I would meet them there and marry them.

When I arrived at City Hall, it was as if I was stepping into a dream world: A line had begun to form as word got that legal marriage was now available to gay and lesbian couples. Gay couples, lesbian couples and straight couples were taking their places throughout the building to exchange vows. The joy in that building was overwhelming.

San Francisco was transformed during our “Winter of Love.” So many of our neighbors and friends were married. Many of the couples had been together for years, had even had civil and holy unions. Yet it was not until they received their marriage certificates that their relationships gained equal footing with straight couples: families who in the past referred to their son and his “friend” proudly claimed him now as a son-in-law. Co-workers who were indifferent after holy unions quickly put together wedding showers for newlyweds. It was clear that marriage was an

Officiating at the first legal wedding for a gay couple
 in a United Methodist Church

important step in the long road to equality.

By the time that window of legal marriage was over in San Francisco, I had married 9 couples related to my congregation. I had the privilege of officiating at the first legal marriage between a gay couple to be performed in a United Methodist Church. Our congregation joined the rest of the City in celebrating the way the love between a couple spills out into the larger community to bless us all.

As a theologian, I couldn’t help but see God…EVERYWHERE. The scriptures tell us that “God is love, and love is of God.” With the amount of love that was celebrated in San Francisco during that brief legal window, God was simply busting out all over!

Not everyone saw it that way. I soon had an official ecclesial complaint filed against me, for performing the marriage in a church. Mayor Gavin Newsom was derided as a renegade. The rest of the country simply shook their heads, “Those crazy folks in San Francisco…”

Ten years later and the Defense of Marriage Act is dead. Marriages have resumed not only in San Francisco and California, but in states across the US, with the number of states offering marriage to all loving couples increasing exponentially. And a review of Gavin Newsom’s political record has changed from labelling him a renegade to a progressive, forward-thinking Democrat.

The complaint against me was dropped, but now other colleagues in other states bear the heavy burden of choosing to be a pastor to all their parishioners or obeying an unjust church law that forbids pastors from officiating at the weddings of their gay and lesbian parishioners. For me, it was and continues to be no contest: I will always choose the side of love, for that is where God resides.

 

A LOVE GREATER THAN LAW

On Monday, May 6, 2013, a New York Times article reported on the complaint against Dr. Tom Ogletree for performing his son's wedding. What should be reserved as a day of celebration has turned into a charge of disobedience because Dr. Ogletree's son is gay: The United Methodist Church forbids pastors from performing "ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions."

The United Methodist Church is conflicted when it comes to the rights of glbt persons. At first glance, one might conclude that the UMC supports legal marriage for gay and lesbian couples, since the church believes that equal rights for same-sex couples is "a clear issue of simple justice in protecting the rightful claims where people have shared material resources,pensions, guardian relationships, mutual powers of attorney, and other such lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships that involve shared contributions, responsibilities, and liabilities, and equal protection before the law."

 However, the church also supports “laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”  The church believes that gay men and lesbians have a right to serve openly in the military, but forces glbt pastors deep into a closet of "don't ask, don't tell."  We believe sexuality is a good gift from God, but refuse the use of General and Annual Conference funds to encourage thoughtful conversation and study around sexual orientation, because it might "promote the acceptance of homosexuality."
 

A "clear issue of simple justice" has become convoluted double-speak for the church, The church cannot call for lgbt equality and justice in the world and give the same group of people second class status in the church. But that is exactly what the church has done. And as lgbt equality is fast becoming the law of the land, the church is growing increasingly out of step with a world that values dignity, diversity, and right action.

As I write this, Delaware has become the 11th state to legalize marriage between same sex couples, and Minnesota is poised to be number 12. Currently, 48% of Americans live in states that offer legal rights/protections for gay and lesbian couples.  As more politicians come out in favor of marriage equality and more than 50% of Americans support this movement, it is clear that the tide has turned in the US, and marriage equality will eventually be the law of the land.

It doesn't take a statistician to predict that this will result in more gay and lesbian United Methodists asking their pastors to officiate at their wedding and that more and more pastors will say "I will".  No church law can stop love. There will be more and more Tom Ogletrees, clergy of glbt children who will turn their back on the church's injustice and without hesitation will officiate at their child's wedding. And there will be more and more United Methodist pastors who will consider it yet one more vocational honor, to bless the union of two committed people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.



The Wedding of Dan & Bill 2004
Bethany UMC San Francisco

The crisis in the church is not that people are breaking the "law". Jesus models to us that laws that cause harm to God's people are to be disregarded.  The crisis is that the church is failing to understand how it has perpetuated harm against God's glbt children. Bullying, physical violence, emotional violence, spiritual violence, murder, and suicide are all related to the church's inability to embrace fully lgbt persons.  As long as The United Methodist Church has "laws" on the books proclaiming lgbt persons "incompatible with Christian teaching" it will continue to have blood on its hands.

The deeper crisis is the church's failure to recognize God in the midst of love. Scripture tells us that God is love. When marriages were legal in San Francisco in 2004, God was EVERYWHERE! I, who have been trained as a United Methodist elder, had never before encountered God so fully as those beautiful weeks when love was celebrated, covenanted, blessed and licensed! The City was brought to a whole new level of joy, as complete strangers stopped to give flowers to newlyweds, as offices shut down to throw wedding showers, as parents dropped everything to fly into SF to be at their children's sides for the most important day of their lives.


If the church can't recognize this as something holy and true, one has to wonder: what in God's name is wrong with the church?

---

Thoughts on the Journey to General Conference

As I fly to Tampa for General Conference of The United Methodist Church, I go praying and hoping that at this General Conference the church will remove a line in The Book of Discipline that has caused 40 years of pain and debate: “We consider homosexual practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

In 1972, when this line was added from the plenary floor to a paragraph that was neither condoning nor condemning of homosexuality, there was no discussion on what constitutes “practice” nor what “Christian teaching” this was based on. But with its inclusion, the UMC moved from a pastoral response to one of judgment. It is on this one sentence that the UMC has become increasingly anti-glbt in its own practices and ministries. Gay and lesbian persons who have been baptized and raised in the church are not acceptable as ministry candidates or ordained pastors, regardless of whether they are called by God to serve in the UMC or possess the gifts and graces for ministry.  Gay and lesbian members are welcomed to join a church, but are sent to the back of the bus (or to the back pew) when it comes to receiving the full rites of the church: Gay or lesbian couples may not have their relationships blessed within the church or by their pastor.  Funding restrictions at the General and Annual Conference levels limit the ability for faithful UMs to even discuss this issue fully and prayerfully, as there is a ban on the use of funds for programs that “promote” homosexuality.

So help me out, Church. Particularly those of you who want the UMC to retain these prohibitions because “homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching.”  On what basis do you rest your convictions?

I’ve heard many people say that this is what the scriptures tell us. Really? Out of all the verses in the Bible, from the handful of times that homosexuality may be mentioned, you are going to make a whole group of people second-class citizens in the body of Christ?  Do you hold as strong convictions on other parts of scripture: the Bible is very clear about what we should do with menstruating women and divorce. Where are our restrictions around these issues?  The Bible advocates the stoning of children who swear at their parents and an economics that borders on socialism (check out Jesus, and the early church in Acts)—are we going to advocate for these? There are also prohibitions about eating shellfish, but I don’t see any petitions calling for a boycott of Red Lobster.

So my hunch is that the Bible really isn’t at the heart of this conversation. After all, the church has managed to move from an acceptance of slavery to seeing it as an abomination, and while scriptures say that women ought to be silent, woman preachers are now acceptable (although I know some of you still think this was a mistake). Why can’t our understanding of those few verses also be evolving, being reformed by the Holy Spirit as other verses have?

You often say this will break with church tradition. The church has broken with its own traditions over and over again as it seeks to be faithful to God in the challenges and opportunities of a new age. The Reformation and the ordination of women are but two examples of the church “changing its mind”.  We do not require celibacy for our pastors, yet this is a break from Christian tradition. Tradition is always evolving as it encounters the realities of a new age. We all have seen Christian traditions reshaped over the generations, so this isn’t a strong argument, either.

You also say that accepting gay men and lesbians will make us out of step with mainstream Christianity. In the US, we are the ones out of step! As our Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ brethren have discovered, God is still speaking and informing us on this issue. They have confessed their sin of exclusion and have reformed Christian teaching and tradition as they accept gay men and lesbians fully as members of the body of Christ.  The United Methodist Church is increasingly seen as oppressive and bigoted as it rejects its glbt members and their families. Is oppression and bigotry what it means to be in step with mainstream Christianity?

You also say that accepting gay men and lesbians into the ministry of the Church will hamper and perhaps even damage its witness and effectiveness in countries around the world. Really? Help me understand this: welcoming faithful men and women into the life and ministry of the church can hurt the Church’s reputation (Hmm, I wonder what Jesus would say about this)?  What I think is more deplorable is that in countries where gay men and lesbians are regularly beaten, tortured, raped and murdered, the Church is being a complicit partner in the violence and genocide. In countries which are criminalizing gay men and lesbians, the Church is deafeningly silent. 

Homosexuality is found in every culture, regardless of whether it is “tolerated” or not. This is a fact. No matter what a country’s cultural understanding might be, there are gay and lesbian people who exist in spite of the culture’s repression. In whatever culture it finds itself, the Church ought to be a place where every child of God is welcomed and invited to grow into the fully person God created him or her to be.

So, help me out, what is really at the heart of your commitment to keeping the UMC’s stance on homosexuality?

Perhaps you feel this way because homosexuality is so different from your own orientation and experience. It is the “other” and hard to understand. Ask a gay man or lesbian (or bisexual or transgender person) about their life, how they came to understand their sexual orientation (and gender identity). Listen to how God has moved in their life, about their faith journey. Learn why the Church is important to them and how they live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Don’t tell me you don’t know any gay or lesbian people. They can be found among your sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, aunts and uncles, co-workers and neighbors. Get to know them. Once you have heard their story, once you have seen their commitment to Christ, can you still look them in the eye and say they are not acceptable in the body of Christ?

The truth is, glbt persons have been serving faithfully in the church for generations: Sunday School teachers, choir directors, youth workers, UMW members, trustees, organists, pastors, and yes, even bishops. This isn’t going to stop any time soon just because of prohibitions in the Book of Discipline. God keeps calling glbt persons to serve in the UMC. The UMC has enjoyed the fruits of their labors, and will continue to do so. Can we at least agree on this truth?

As you debate the homosexual “issue” for these next two weeks, remember that you are not talking about some abstract thing, you are talking about your brothers and sisters, many of whom will be in the same room with you. The words you choose will carry weight and can either do harm or can build up. Choose your words carefully.

I am praying for you and with you, for all of us who dearly love this Church. Part of my prayer includes the words of this song of faith by Hezekiah Walker:

I won’t harm you with words from my mouth, I love you. I need you to survive.

Standing on the Side of Justice and Love?

Recently, The United Methodist Church General Board of Pension and Health Benefits decided to add another social screen to their investment portfolio: companies related to private prisons. This adds to the current screens of gambling, the manufacture, sale, or distribution of tobacco-related products, weapons, and pornography. This continues to keep the pension funds of clergy and lay employees in line with the denomination's historic stand for social justice.

I am very happy that The UMC is concerned about those on the margins  enough to make a commitment not to profit from (or add to the profit of) companies that support systems of injustice.

I wonder, however, how well The UMC would fair if some companies that we are in partnership with utilized certain social screens?  Would they continue to do business with The UMC?

Every clergy and lay employee whose pension is through GBPHB has free access to Ernst and Young Financial Planning Services.  This is valuable and important for those whose careers do not exactly offer a windfall of economic gain. But interestingly enough, Ernst and Young has just been named The Employer of the Year by the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender advocacy group, Stonewall.

The UMC, with its own version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", speaks out of both corners of its mouth when talking about homosexuality. The church believes in equal rights for gay men and lesbians in society, but not within the church. Gay and lesbian couples ought to have their relationships protected by law, but cannot have those same relationships blessed in their house of worship by their pastor.  Gay men and lesbians ought to be able to serve freely in the military, but self-avowed, practicing homosexuals are not to be admitted as ordination candidates, ordained clergy, or appointed to churches.  All this because the church states that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching."

This year, The United Methodist Church will gather as it does every 4 years to determine how the Holy Spirit is moving the church to live with greater faithfulness into the future.  Nearly one thousand delegates will spend two weeks in prayer, conversation, study and legislative activities, providing a new set guidelines for the people called United Methodist. One of the issues that will be discussed and debated is homosexuality.  For forty years, this has been an issue which has divided the church, yet the voting body has been unable to even acknowledge that the divide exists, voting down time after time a simple recognition that the church does not agree on this issue. As a result, United Methodist gay men and lesbians have been told that their lives and their love are incompatible with Christian teaching. This pronouncement flies in the face of a God who causes each one of us to proclaim in our own voice, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Psalm 139)

As we prayerfully approach General Conference, I wonder where, how, and what God is saying to us regarding homosexuality:

• as our sister and brother mainline Protestant denominations have moved to accept the gifts and graces of gay and lesbian members,
• as state after state offers legal recognition through marriage equality or domestic partnerships of gay and lesbian couples,
• as the US military sees that gay men and lesbians can serve as faithfully and valiantly as straight service men and women,
• as young people turn to suicide because of the church's complicit support of bullying,
• as more and more companies that The UMC does business with have more just employment policies than the church.

The United Methodist Church has a long history of standing on the side of justice and love. What side will we be standing on after the final votes are cast at General Conference?

Standing on the Side of Love

Today I was taken away in handcuffs as the battle ground for equal rights moves from the lunch counter to the marriage license counter.

It was part of a marriage equality action. As a way to highlight the injustice of marriage laws, which deny gay and lesbian couples the legal rights and protections which marriage affords, and to honor the anniversary of San Francisco's "Winter of Love" (2004) when Mayor Gavin Newsom surprised the world by allowing city officials to issue marriage certificates to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, marriage counter protests occur in city halls across America as gay and lesbian couples request--and are denied--a marriage license.



Heading into the marriage license office

 In San Francisco, clergy, gay and lesbian couples, and city officials held a press conference in City Hall.  Following the press conference, we clergy accompanied several couples to the marriage license counter. When they were refused a license, we sat down and began to sing, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love" until we were led away in handcuffs.

As an officer handcuffed me and led me down into the basement of City Hall, he guided me with his hand on my shoulder and back with the gentlest of touches. I remember thinking, "I have never been touched by a stranger--and certainly not by an arresting officer--in a way that had ever made me feel like I was something precious." That's how gentle he touched me.

We got to the bottom of the stairs and then he motioned for me to walk with him down a long corridor that ran the length of City Hall. Suddenly, he blurted out, "I didn't think this would be as hard as it is," and he burst into tears.

He looked at me, tears running down his face, and told me of how he and his husband had been married in 2008. He was grateful that they were amongst the lucky ones, whose marriage is still recognized by California. "But it hurts to know there are other couples who feel the same love we do, who can't get married."

By then, we were both in tears, held in the tension felt between our two vocations. He was doing his job, by arresting me. I was doing my job by standing up for justice and love.  Together, we saw how flawed our legal system is when it refuses to protect the loving relationship of all committed couples.

He led me into the holding room and before he uncuffed me, he blessed me with two simple words:

"Thank you."

Who is Really Ruining Marriage and Destroying the Family?

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has, in response to marriage equality in DC, chosen to drop spousal health care benefits for its employees. Additionally, they have dropped their foster/adoption program.  The reason is that the Catholic Church does not recognize same-gender-loving couples and is unwilling to extend health care to the spouses of their gay and lesbian employees. Additionally, they are not willing to place children in houses of married gay or lesbian couples.

I find this so troubling. Jesus helps us redefine family, extending our notion of who is and who is not family far beyond our comfort zone.  Jesus embraced the outcast, the unlovely and unlovable, extending love and a healing touch even to the untouchables.  Here, Jesus points, are my sisters and brothers...all who do the will of God.

The Catholic Church has now chosen to pull the plug on the well-being of the families of its employees. Additionally, it is turning its back the cries of children who long for permanent, forever families. 

While conservative pundits warn that marriage equality will spell the ruin of marriage and destroy the family, it seems like the ones who are doing that are conservatives themselves!

It Matters to Us

One of the sacred texts that has shaped my life and ministry is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from the Birmingham Jail".  Writes King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

Certainly recent events have revealed the truth of King's words:

The fact that our Haitian sisters and brothers are experiencing suffering beyond measure must matter to us.

That there are those in our nation who cannot afford health care must matter to us.

That some households are filled with violence and abuse must matter to us.

That some couples' relationships of love, mutuality and commitment are legally considered second class must matter to us.

That bombs continue to fall upon, maim and kill civilians must matter to us.

That in a world of plenty so many have so little must matter to us.

That people are held in suspicion even in their own neighborhoods because of the brown or black skin or accent or country of origin must matter to us.

If it does matter to us, we are propelled to do something about it, to relieve the suffering, to address the injustice, to commit to equality, to address the causes of violence, poverty, and oppression.  If we are truly connected to one another, we must put our love into action and help bring healing, hope, and wholeness to a world in need.

Thank you, Martin, for modelling to us how faithful living prompts us to love in ways that challenge structures, systems and institutions that crush the human spirit and deny dignity so that the beloved community may emerge.