Tag Archives: queer

2018 Fundraising Letter

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December 6, 2018

Dear Friends in the Struggle:

Everything Love Prevails has ever said or done boils down to one message: Take all of the anti-queer, homophobic, cis-gendered language out of The Book of Discipline. This is simply the only way for justice, love, and inclusion to be made real in the United Methodist Church.

Like many of you, we have felt discouraged and stymied over the past couple of years. Despite repeated pleas from Love Prevails, the Commission on (Not) the Way Forward carried on its work without significant input from a diverse representation of United Methodist queer folks. The release of the Traditionalist Plan has revealed the vicious intent to purge the church of an LGBTQ+ presence. And the hearts of our Bishops have remained hardened against us as they prioritize the maintenance of the institution over the well-being of God’s queer children.

We have shared the shock of just how bad this denomination feels right now and how much worse it might actually get for queer folx and their allies in February of 2019. As we approach the Special Session, we are horrified that the majority United Methodists seem to believe that the One Church Plan is a step in the right direction.

Love Prevails remains committed to the defeat of the One Church Plan. The effect of the One Church Plan would be the functional abandonment of our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in certain geographic areas, while others enjoy newfound privileges. The United Methodist Church certainly does not need pockets of prejudice and discrimination which will continue to infect the rest of the Body of Christ.

Additionally, while it is true that the One Church Plan would remove the costly public spectacle of church trials – it will do so by transferring all that violence to our Annual Conferences and local churches, where LGBTQ people will not have access to representation or due process. Instead of creating One Church that is faithful to the gospel, this plan will essentially place targets on the backs of LGBTQ people and make every one of us more vulnerable to the worst of United Methodist harm. The One Church Plan will set us all back by making every decision-making body of the church, at every single level, a place where LGBTQ people will be debated and wounded, punished and pushed out.

In the midst of all this, Love Prevails continues to offer our critical analysis and prophetic witness. Our core team meets by phone and video conferences every three weeks and we have podcasted our most current thinking. Some of us continue to travel to meetings at the general church level – where we are often met by local police and hired security, avoidant glances, and tired excuses. We have been faithful to loving one another through difficulty of continued exclusion.

And, we will show up at the General Conference in St. Louis, offer the faithful witness that only we can, and demand again that General Conference remove the discriminatory language and make no provisions for codified, localized injustice.

To do this, we need your support. We humbly ask you to make an end-of-year contribution to help our team travel to and from St. Louis. Please consider a donation to Love Prevails by going to our website www.loveprevailsumc.com/donate or by sending a check to Love Prevails c/o Kairos CoMotion. P.O. Box 45234, Madison, WI 53744-5234

With Advent Hope,

The Members of Love Prevails,

 Rev. Amy E. DeLong     Rev. Will Green       Laura Ralston         Dr. Mary Lou Taylor   

Rev. Dr. Julie Todd       Brenda White          Rev. Wesley White

PDF of 2018 Fundraising Letter

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The Exhausted Right

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IMG_0706 (2)by Rev. Amy E. DeLong

“I’m just so tired of fighting about this issue!”

These are words I hear spoken, not from me or my Queer friends who are rightfully exhausted by the church’s oppressive and intractable demand for hetero- and cis-normativity, but from my conservative brothers and sisters within the United Methodist Church.

It is a statement which frankly confuses me. Since 1972, the conservative faction of the United Methodist Church has enjoyed immense success in their legislative efforts to codify anti-Queer discrimination and prejudice. Here are the General Conference lowlights:

1972 – Labelled all Queer people “incompatible”
1976 – Scared boards and agencies silent with a funding ban
1984 – Categorically barred the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” and took steps to weed out gay candidates for ministry by inserting into the Book of Discipline the seemingly benign phrase “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.”
1996 – Prohibited holy unions from being performed by United Methodist clergy or in United Methodist facilities
2000 – Arrested 29 people (including two bishops) who protested the church’s anti-gay practices and polity
2004 – Criminalized immorality (including, but not limited to not being celibate in singleness or not faithful in a   heterosexual marriage), being an ordained “self-avowed practicing homosexual”, performing holy union ceremonies or same-sex marriages

For more than four decades, the LGBTQ community within the United Methodist Church has never experienced what could be regarded as “a win.” The legislation has only gotten more prohibitive, restrictive, and punitive. And yet, it is the religious right who claim exhaustion.

Of course, this begs the question, “Why are they so pooped?” The answer seems simple enough: Because they never thought it would take so much time, money, and focused energy to get rid of us. They must have been so certain that with each cruel and callous piece of legislation we would leave; that their attempts at cultural genocide would have been measurably successful by now; that their profound spiritual brutality and ever-increasing malice would have driven us away, long ago. And yet, here we are.

I am reminded of the Mexican proverb that says, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”

We Queers just keep popping up. And like defiant spring dandelions, we are ever more resistant to the religious right’s spiritual “Roundup.” We are stronger, prouder, more resilient, more rebellious – and most importantly, more certain of God’s acceptance and more confident of God’s call, which, of course, makes us increasingly impervious to their spiritual abuse and bad teachings.

Yeah … the religious right should be tired. But imagine how tuckered out they will be after they break away from the United Methodist Church to start their own church (free of the ambiguous and gritty reality of human sexuality), only to find that there are little Queer kids singing in their Cherub Choirs who, when they grow up, won’t want to be thrown out of their churches either.