Vote on LGTBQ issues divides United Methodists in Modesto, around globe

Liz Oakes was horrified, she said, as she watched members of her church — represented in 136 nations worldwide — condemn the LGTBQ community.

The openly gay and married minister of pastoral care for First United Methodist Church in downtown Modesto was viewing a live feed of the 2019 special session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, held Feb. 23-26 in St. Louis.

At the conference, delegates voted 438-384 to approve the so-called Traditional Plan, banning same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy. It was nothing new, really. An article on the Umc.org website notes, “This means our current statements about homosexuality, same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ persons have not fundamentally changed.”

Another vote by delegates at the session defeated the so-called One Church Plan, 436-386. That plan would have left questions of LGBTQ ordination up to conferences and same-gender weddings up to local churches and individual clergy, according to the UM News site.

Oakes knows there are strong ANTI-LGBTQ views within the church in other parts of the world, she said. But she didn't realize how much representation that stance had among delegates, even ones within the U.S. “I was stunned, I could not believe the vote went that way, and some of the comments people made from the floor,” she said this week. “Just hateful. I was horrified.”

At least one delegate intimated that a gay or lesbian person in the pulpit would be condemned if he or she caused someone else “to stray,” she said. Old Testament stuff — like the pastor would be drowned, she said.

“What struck me was the real hatred, and in a church convention like that,” Oakes said. “It was horrifying that there could be that much hatred and anger” within the church in which she's found a home.

Bob Collins, pastor of the conservative Centenary United Methodist Church on Toyon Avenue in Modesto, also watched the live stream from the special session. And though his church supports the Traditional Plan, “we came away feeling there were no winners at all,” he said Thursday. It's sad that there's such a tremendous divide within the UMC, Collins said, and “comments made all over the place were pretty hurtful and pretty ugly.”

Ani Missirian-wilson, pastor of First United Methodist, attended the special session and on March 3 talked with her congregation about the votes for the Traditional Plan and against the One Church Plan.

For First United Methodist Church pastor Ani Missirian-wilson‘s report on the 2019 General Conference, view the video below.

In her report, which was posted on Youtube, she said that Jesus again and again preached against exclusion. He went out of his way to include those who were ostracized, including lepers, prostitutes, slaves, prisoners and the poor, Missirian-wilson said. “Who are we, 2,000 years later, as a religious community to say these people or those people are excluded from the inclusive nature of the body of Christ?”

Both Modesto UMC congregations are members of the Californianevada Conference, which is under the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. The bishops of the Western Jurisdiction issued a statement after the special session vote that they choose to continue operating on the One Church Plan and “will continue to be a home for all God's people, gathered around a table of reconciliation and transformation.”