Though the average Southern Baptist will tell you that Methodists are bed-wetting liberals and practically atheists, the denomination upheld Tuesday, and strengthened, its longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy and conducting same-sex weddings.
The United Methodist Church on Tuesday voted to strengthen its ban on gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriages, a decision that could split the nation’s second-largest Protestant church.
After three days of intense debate at a conference in St. Louis, the vote by church officials and lay members from around the world doubled down on current church policy, which states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The vote served as a rejection of a push by progressive members and leaders to open the church to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Feel the love-love-love.
So, inevitably, the Methodists will split, which is what has happened to every other denomination once it has confronted the question of gays in the life of the church.
How could it be otherwise? Some people remain children all their lives, and they need the comfort of unambiguous and unchanging rules to follow; when they do so, they are “good.” Other people can’t stop learning and growing, and Bronze Age imbecilities aren’t going to stick with them for a lifetime. This is why social change takes so long; literally, the traditionalists all have to die off before a bad idea or behavior loses its influence.