Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Methodist mistakes

I was really saddened to see this news about the Methodist Church taking a hardline stand against gays the other day.

In a series of rulings handed down Monday, the nine-member Judicial Council, the ultimate court of the Methodist Church, removed a practicing lesbian minister from her Philadelphia church, voided a decree by Methodists in the Pacific Northwest that there was a "difference of opinion among faithful Christians regarding sexual orientation and practice," and reinstated a Virginia minister who had not allowed a gay man to join his congregation.

I’ve been a Methodist all of my life and I’m not about to change because some intolerant right-wingers have apparently hijacked the church’s governing body at the national level.
I was heartened to see the church I currently call home coming out against these misguided rulings.
Homosexuality, as I’ve argued many times before, is not a sin. It is a biological condition over which people have little to no control.
When a spokesman for the church says “It's not the orientation, but the practice” that they oppose, it is like telling someone who was born left-handed that they are only allowed to use their right hand to be in the church.

There is no excuse for this kind of blatant bigotry based on ignorance and superstition. It is no different than this stupid, stupid Proposition 2 that is on the November ballot. I’ll never understand why some people think that the sanctity and happiness of their marriages is somehow dependent on making other people miserable and unhappy by not allowing them to marry.

No comments:

Post a Comment