Methodists still stuck on gay rights issue
Trouble is brewing in the United Methodist Church. It's that old issue: the rights of gay men and lesbians. For 30 years, this has been the defining issue in United States Methodism, the one controversy that can't be settled and won't go away.
This time, the agency responsible for scouting ministries in the church has issued a statement calling for the Boy Scouts of America to deny leadership positions to gay men. The group, one assumes, believes this statement is in keeping with wider United Methodist policy that denies ordination to "self avowed, practicing homosexuals." What that means is that certain people proudly admit to having sexual relations with people of the same gender. And when they do admit such amorous feelings and actions, the United Methodist church says they cannot serve as ordained ministers, cannot serve congregations as pastors, and must not ever be allowed to accept a position as an ordained church executive.
The Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod also joined in the statement.
The flap started this past September when the Commission on United Methodist Men supported an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeal argued the Boy Scouts had the right to deny gay men leadership positions in their organization.
The New Jersey Supreme Court already had ruled the Boy Scouts could not discriminate against a homosexual leader because of the state's law against discrimination. The men's organization joined with the Latter Day Saints in the case of James Dale vs. the Boy Scouts of America. Dale, an Eagle Scout, had been removed by the Boy Scouts from a leadership position because he is a gay man.
According to the Rev. Joseph Harris, top executive of the United Methodist Men, the statement allows the Boy Scouts to continue choosing leaders in a "traditional" way. Incidentally, neither Harris nor his associate, Larry Coppock, would talk with me about this issue. Harris said he was "tired" of talking about homosexuality.
To choose leaders in the traditional way is to allow churches and Boy Scout troops to discriminate against any person they suspect of being a gay male.
The United Methodists are the single largest supporter of the Boy Scouts of America. United Methodist churches sponsor 11,738 troops with 421,579 boys in scouting activities. But now that the Boy Scouts appear to be discriminating against homosexuals, the Methodist ardor for scouting is fading.
The prospect of the Boy Scouts taking oaths from their volunteer leaders is repugnant. What would the questions be? "Have you ever thought you might be a homosexual? Have you ever looked at another man and thought he was attractive? Have you ever wondered . . . ?"
Effectively, the United Methodist men's organization says, as long as gay males misrepresent their sexuality, we will accept them as leaders. But if they tell the truth, we will kick them out of any leadership position.
It should not surprise us that many United Methodists disagree with the men's organization of their church. Jane Hull Harvey, a staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, says the entire church is getting a bad rap because of the statement.
"I know the world looks at us askance and asks, `What do you really believe?' I say, we believe gay males and lesbians are entitled to have their civil rights ensured. What you're getting here is one commission interpreting the church's position and our organization coming with another interpretation," she said.
Harvey talked about the impossible task of investigating every Scout troop and identifying all gay males in the organization.
"To check every Scout leader for homosexual tendencies would be an enormous and destructive witch hunt," Harvey said. "We have to remember that people disagree on this issue, but God's grace is sufficient for all of us."
In May 2000, the church's general conference will deal with this little controversy, and you can count on things getting hot. This has been a huge problem for United Methodists for more than three decades. It's time to settle the matter in a courageous way.
Clark D. Morphew
