A good decision to sleep in this morning. I have now had 2 good night’s sleep. The first split over 3 days and 1 last night. Apparently the sermon this morning was pretty good…but I was losing focus. I did say a prayer for Trinity this morning as is my habit whenever I am absent. I trust Dr. Holland had things well in hand! Thanks Dad.
My lobbying efforts paid off and my petition to require the recusal of Judicial Council Members when faced with a conflict of interest passed 33-9. It cost me a trip to the ballgame, but I have been working on this petition for two years, so I could not afford to miss the final meeting. Now it goes forward on the consent calendar! Yeah!
In an intriguing twist, a member of the Judicial Administration committee (the committee I have been in and is considering all of my petitions) stood up in the plenary of the whole GC and referred this issue of recusal to the Judicial Council. The Judicial Council must rule on the constitutionality of this issue in the next couple of days and will report back. If they rule that the Discipline cannot mandate recusal, then my first petition about the constitution, which went down in flames yesterday 50-0, becomes central to the discussion! So, I will have to gather 10 signatures to pull it off the consent calendar so it can be discussed on the floor of the whole GC. If they rule that the Discipline can mandate recusals, then this dead petition can stay dead. Confusing?
In some big news the Church and Society voted out the controversial language in the Discipline that says, “Homosexuality is incompatible with Christian Teaching” and replaced it with a very well written statement that says we are still conflicted over the issue of homosexuality, so we will continue to love everyone. It passed in Committee 39-27. It remains to be seen if this is a strong enough majority to hold up on the floor of General Conference. We will not know until mid-week.
Tomorrow morning begins the voting for the Judicial Council. This is the most hyped issue this year. Will the incumbents be reelected or will the GC put in some fresh faces. The voting starts at 9:20 am, so pray early and often that we can get some new people on the board!
There are some of the committees that are still meeting as I am writing this. Some will probably go until 1 am or later. Tomorrow is going to be a marathon start to finish. We will spend about 12 hours in plenary…
More tomorrow…
Keep up the good work! Remember that the misnamed “Good News” folk are deviously deceptive and often just plain mean in the way they attack issues and people. The saints at Trinity were kind and receptive yesterday. REH