Well the “queer” question has generated lots of responses. In short, it is reported that this is used by the younger folks (thus showing my age) for people who self-identify as “questioning” the categories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered etc. Some say it is an effort to reclaim a hateful term. For a longer list of responses, check out yesterday’s blog 9 and just below it hit “comments.”
Today was a sprint to the finish line. The budget was adopted with relative ease. Shocking how easy it is to vote for $642 million over 4 years. They have a very interesting and complicated formula for how they arrive at that number, but it was explained and everyone voted it in. All attempts at amending it were met with booing and crushing “no” votes. We passed all the “financial implication” petitions by Monday, so the Finance Committee could re-work the budget during the week. No one was in the mood for changing their hard work on the last day.
Then the crunch began. We worked through petitions with people getting increasingly grumpy….I ended up with the night shift on the floor suffering through the inefficiency an minutia and I was getting grumpy too.
Today was an amazing day for my petitions. I brought one about a Constitutional Amendment to allow the GC to mandate a “conflicts of interest” policy for the Judicial Council. You may remember that went down in flames in committee 50-0, because people thought it was unnecessary. Well, who knew the general council for the church (ie Big Lawyer) had recommended a petition requiring All Groups and organizations of the church to have Conflict of Interest policies. Sure enough, it came up today and passed and along with it my idea…even though my petition was crushed.
The second petition I brought was the “Conflict of Interest Policy” for the Judicial Council. Well, it was referred to the Judicial Council Sunday, I submitted a brief to keep it alive Tuesday, and on Wednesday they read the result where the Judicial Council ruled it unconstitutional…citing the paragraph of the constitution I had tried to amend with my first petition that died. Apparently it was necessary. So, two out of three of my petitions were dead, but one of the ideas lived on.
But there is more good news! The new President of the Judicial Council has requested copies of the unconstitutional petitions, because they want to use them as a starting point for adopting their own conflict of interest policy. The problem was that the GC could not mandate them, but the new members of the Judicial Council—the sane ones we elected Monday–recognize that they need one. And, now there is constitutional support for them to do it. So, two dead petitions, but two ideas moving forward.
But there is more! At 11 pm sharp Friday night, the last day, at the time we had set to finish, with only 5 petitions left, an Amazing Moment occurred! Up on the floor came my last petition. It had failed in committee 27-17, which meant it was not on the consent calendar. But, I had long since lost track of it and I assumed it had died days before. Furthermore, we saw statistics today that showed of the 1,800 petitions presented to the General Conference, 98% of the time the plenary agrees with the committees’ recommendation to accept or reject. Only 18 of 1,800 were passed with additional amendments from the floor. And only 3 times out of 1,800 had the plenary reversed a committee’s recommendation.
Well there was my sorry little petition that would require Judicial Council members to have been members of the UM church for 4 years before they could be elected. Currently the Discipline makes no specification for Judicial Council, but requires persons to have been a member of the UM church for at least 2 years to be elected to serve as a delegate to General Conference. My rationale was that it is a bigger responsibility to serve on Judicial Council than to be a delegate, so it should require more years.
Well, I stood up and spoke for the allotted 1 minute stating my rationale, and low and behold it passed! It became number 4 all week to reverse the committee! It was my first and only speech this year on the floor of the General Conference and I made it count!
So, three petitions presented, two voted down but the ideas passed in other forms. And one snatched from the jaws of defeat at the last moment. Yeah.
They had closing worship scheduled for 11:15 pm. I decided to quit while I was ahead and get back to finish this blog and go to bed! I fly out in the morning and I am ready.
Well, next week I may do a summary blog…to be determined. But for now my work is done. Thanks for your interest!
May God richly bless you, your family, and your ministry!
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