Worship Drummer

Paul Jeffrey Paul Jeffrey/UM News

Worship consultant Marcia McFee and others celebrate on May 1 after the 2024 United Methodist General Conference, meeting in Charlotte, N.C., voted to remove the denomination's ban on the ordination of clergy who are “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” — a prohibition that dated to 1984. (Photo by Paul Jeffrey/UM News)

Delegates Remove Ban on LGBTQ Clergy, Same-Sex Weddings by Consensus Vote

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A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The day for which LGBTQ United Methodists and their allies have worked for 40 years arrived on May 1 when the postponed 2020 General Conference overwhelmingly removed the ban on ordaining "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" as clergy.

Delegates also removed a ban on United Methodist clergy performing marriages for same-sex couples, which is legal in the United States and other countries where United Methodists are located.

The vote was 692 for and 51 against to approve the consent calendar containing the petitions.

No United Methodist church will be forced to accept an LGBTQ pastor or to perform same-gender weddings.

Gone from United Methodist law is Paragraph 304.3, which read: "While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church."

Nine Judicial Council decisions since 1984 had been used to define "self-avowed practicing homosexual" as "a person (who) openly acknowledges to a bishop, district superintendent, district committee of ordained ministry, Board of Ordained Ministry, or clergy session that the person is a practicing homosexual; or is living in a same-sex marriage, domestic partnership or civil union, or is a person who publicly states she or he is a practicing homosexual."

Also, the following language was added to Paragraph 304: 13. "The superintendent shall not penalize any clergy for performing, or refraining from performing, a same-sex marriage service.

"14. The superintendent shall neither require any local church to hold or prohibit a local church from holding a same-sex marriage service on property owned by a local church."

The addition of these paragraphs eliminates the prohibition on same-sex weddings being conducted in local churches.

Both actions go into effect at the close of General Conference on May 3.

Whoops of joy and applause broke out in the Charlotte Convention Center's Hall B when Consent Calendar A05 was adopted. Proceedings continued as groups of yellow-clad and rainbow-bedecked supporters wept and hugged one another at the repeal of the phrase "self-avowed, practicing homosexual."

At the morning break around 200 people gathered in a courtyard outside the convention center under rainbow-striped umbrellas to the beat of a conga drum played by the Rev. Marcia McFee, one of the UMC's most noted worship consultants who is frequently engaged to lead worship services at annual conferences. She is married to Karen Ristine, who was present also at the conference.

"Friends, as Bishop (David) Wilson said this morning, we are preparing the church for the next seven generations," McFee said. "As a hymn says, let us build a house where love can dwell, build the house where weddings for all persons who love each other can take place. The house where love can dwell, and all can safely live. A place where saints and children tell (the next seven generations) how we learn to forgive.

"Now we can say legislatively that we are beginning to see the fullness of what that means," she said. "We have work to do. Legislation doesn't equal behavior all the time."

"Everything is still just sinking in from a personal perspective," she said. "I became a member of the United Methodist Church because it was the first place that loved me and cared for me. After being bullied as a child for being a little different because of my biracial background, my United Methodist Church was always a constant place of welcome and love. I felt my call to ministry (in the UMC) and went to seminary and there I fell in love with my wife and did not go forward with the ordination process.

"So, I personally know the incompatibility clause is the place in our discipline where all the other prohibitions hang from," Cabrera said. "I'm just very, very overwhelmed."

Remaining on the agenda as of noon May 1 is the adoption of the final part of the Revised Social Principles, where the dictum "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching" has spawned the multiple restrictions and penalties that run throughout the Book of Discipline, the collection of United Methodist laws.

The Revised Social Principles makes little mention of human sexuality except to condemn sexual abuse of any persons. The document defines marriage as "a union of two people of faith" rather than a current description of "between a man and a woman."

The Revised Social Principles has benefitted from delegates' adoption of worldwide regionalization.  Restructuring the UMC into roughly continental areas will give them the authority to set ordination standards and marriage rites according to their own contexts. Regionalization requires constitutional amendments to be approved by two-thirds of United Methodist units known as annual conferences and will take years to vote and then enact.

The General Conference also approved the creation of a study committee on what will be called the General Discipline, which will contain unchangeable doctrine and organization requirements.

United Methodist Insight Editor Cynthia B. Astle has covered The United Methodist Church since 1988. This is her 10th General Conference. Please email Insight for permission to reproduce this content elsewhere.