Started out to be a pretty mundane day following all of the excitement from yesterday. The morning worship and early session went on with business as usual.
Then at 10 am—as negotiated between the bishops and the protestors—the protest began. A large group of maybe 150-200 persons protested the exclusive votes against homosexuals. They came in quietly wearing mostly black with black arm bands. They filled the middle isles, which formed a cross. When everyone was in, they stood and sang, “Where you there when they crucified my Lord.” Notably, they only sang the first three verses, which included, Where you there when they crucified, when they nailed him to the tree, and when they laid him in the grave. They did not sing the verse about resurrection.
Many of us in the gallery stood in support of them. Most of our KS East delegation stood with many other delegates as well, including about a third of the bishops. Bishop Melvin Talbert, retired African American Bishop also made a powerful speech correlating this to the 1939 decision by the General Conference to segregate the church by race. The difference he said was that at least African Americans were in the church, LGBT people are excluded.
The protestors then invited delegates to take black veils and drape the cross on the communion table in the center, very much a Good Friday theme. The presiding bishop then told everyone that 12 bishops would continue meeting with 12 representatives of the Reconciling Ministries Network. Our Bishop Scott Jones did not stand in support of the protest but agreed to be one of the twelve. At the end, he walked down with the other 11 Bishops and they joined hands with 12 protestors around the communion table. We then sang another song which I cannot remember.
You can see the complete video of the protest on your computer: Go to Jan and Stephanie’s blog: http://stephandjanatthegc.blogspot.com Or you can go to my blog and their link is on there. You could also go to www.umc.org and find it on there…but you will have to look for it.
There was one interesting and surprising piece during the protest speeches. In all of their literature the Reconciling Ministries has included LGBT—which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgendered. This in itself rubs a lot of conservatives because it expands the issue of homosexuality to include other categories of people. Well, during their speeches during the protest they added another letter “Q” which stands for “Queer.” This has led to lots of conversation on two levels…First, what is Queer? Many understood that to be pejorative? Second, many interpreted that we are seeking support an ever expanding list, and a list that is confusing. If there is anyone reading this who can shed any light on “Queer” it will be greatly appreciated…and I will pass it along.
Afterwards we had a potty break and back to business as usual. I admit it feels a little crass each time at General Conference that we check the protest off the calendar and get back to work.
Then the afternoon ground to a crawl as the conference began to review 23 petitions for Constitutional amendments. These petitions were brought by study teams to look at the world-wide nature of the church. All of these create flexibility in the church structure that will allow significant restructuring of the international church. The short version of this is that the US church is divided into 5 Jurisdictions while the international church is organized according to “central conferences.” This would potentially allow for a less US-centric structure. This will only be relevant if the study team brings a new design to the 2012 General Conference.
Humorously, we adopted 22 of the 23 which made it stupid not to do the one. So someone moved to reconsider it, which we did and then it passes. Something like 6 hours of legislation time with no guarantee that the study team will make any changes in 4 years.
The world-wide nature of the church is critically important because the General Conference delegates are currently 26% of the total. This will change dramatically in four years when the Ivory Coast is admitted into full connection. So in 2012, the estimates are that a full 40% of the 1,000 delegates will be from outside the US. By 2020 the US delegates will be less than ½. The international growth of the church is going on exponentially while the US and European churches are shrinking.
The conference is fascinating because simultaneous translation is being offered in at least 7 languages, including (I think) Russian, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Spanish, and others. Ironically there is no translation offered for Texan, which has left more than one of us scratching our heads. All the international delegates wear headphones and dial in the language they want to hear. It is powerful when an African stands up and speaks in French, then they cut to the microphone of the translator who then speaks to everyone in English. It really is very cool. Some of you may remember that this is our dream at Trinity to offer worship in Spanish.
Only 1 more day!!!! Yeah!!! I can’t wait to see my family.
Queer is a term used by “younger” gay and lesbian individuals to describe their lifestyle. There is controversy within the community regarding its usage. Simply shows Rev. Mark’s age. KC is eager to have you back here.
I’m a clergy member of the Troy Conference, and I’ve enjoyed reading your blog. I appreciate you sharing your perspectives of General Conference. The song that was sung at the end of the witness was the Taize chant, “Jesus, Remember Me.” Mark Miller, the music leader, is a close friend of mine (and my 9-year-old son’s godfather). As I watched the video online I witnessed a look of pain on his face that I have never seen. When my wife explained to our sons that the GC told Uncle Mark that they love him but not who he is, my 7-year-old responded, “well, that’s rude!” (Amen.) We are most certainly doing great harm by our actions.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for your great blogs. They have been a very helpful personalized testimony to the events at GC.
Another take from Arthurine’s response on the word “queer.” When I was a teen-ager in the late-1950’s, queer was a perjorative hurled against boys/men who were perceived to be homosexual.
May God’s healing work in and through our church.
I also think queer is a word that some persons have reclaimed as their own, much like many sexist and racially charged terms have been reclaim by persons who once were persecuted by such words. It is the whole act of taking a word that once was oppressive and making it a word of power within a certain community.
There’s also a connotation that the word ‘queer’ has taken on which recognizes that there are varieties of sexual self-understanding that don’t fall neatly into categories. For instance, a strait person can talk with a gay person, and the strait person can understand the gay person’s perspective by simply substituting girl for boy (or vice versa).
Folks who self-identify as queer tend to have more unusual and complicated (by societal norms anyway) sexual identities. For instance, someone might be biologically female, identify in society as male, and be partnered with a woman.
The point of reclaiming ‘queer’, I think, is to point out the truth that sexuality is more complicated than simply who shares a bed with whom.
~ matthew
Matthew’s points are well stated, and speak to the broader definition that queer provides.
Some in the community see it as the “umbrella” that holds all the various spectrums of orientation- not viewed as pejorative, there are far more hateful and ugly words that are used in that regard. There is even discussion that anyone who does not fit within the narrow confines of a heteronormative understanding of orientation is queer- hence you can be queer strait ( choosing celibacy, or open to other orientations as “normal” or simply not buying into one life partner, or marriage)
Also within the LGBTQ community, the Q can also refer to Questioning- pretty self-explanatory-
other terms used are Intersex, Pansexual, Polyamory,
which then makes the use of Qeeer helpful to encompass the spectrum in a single “label” if that is what one needs/wants to do.
Queer is also used in scholarly settings, ie. queer studies, queer theology, queer literature, etc.
As we become more educated about the spectrum of human sexual orientation, the need to clarify without embarrassement, shame or guilt is important.
The church needs to be able to address these complex issues openly and with grace and knowledge so we no longer dismember the Body of Christ.
*pansexual: attracted to others, specifically not identified to gender, (man-woman) but male, female, tran, intersex etc.
*intersex: biologically born with both male and female characteristics, genitalia, chromosomes
*polyamory: multiple partners, (more than two) in a relationship, orientation(s) may vary among partners. not to be confused with orgy or polygamy- committed relationship amongst those involved.
there are others, but this opens up a few more things to think about.
“Queer” is a term that has been reclaimed by people within that community because the definition of “alternative or not the norm” works well. Queer is a difficult word for gay/lesbians of older generations for whom the word still holds scarring memories. Another useful quality of “Queer” is that it is a catchment word for all people who consider themselves non-heterosexual. So gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and those who feel that their own sexuality is not described within those labels can find some comfort within the ambiguity of the term “queer”. Some would say that all Christians could call themselves “queer” (at least those of us in Canada!) because we stand outside the behavioural norms of society.
From Amy Crawford and colleague Rick Garland of The United Church of Canada, a church that does truly embrace the radical inclusiveness of Christ’s gospel!