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MIND received the following open letter in response to the Call to declare “We Are!” Open letter to the people of The United Methodist Church from the manager of a large private Facebook group for open minded Christian moms of LGBT kids. The members of the group were very encouraged by this, and sent the following response addressed to the clergy and candidates who signed the Open Letter.

May 9, 2016

Dear Clergy and Clergy Candidates in the New York Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church who signed the open letter to the people of The United Methodist Church.

We are a part of a large private Facebook group of more than 1,000 Christian moms of LGBT kids.

Our group was created for Christian moms who have LGBT kids and want to develop and maintain healthy, loving, authentic relationships with their LGBT kids.

More than 250 of us are signing this letter because we want you to know that we support your brave stand for grace and love, and commend you for seeking to follow Christ’s example.

Many of us have left our local faith communities because we no longer found them to be safe places for our family. We understand how difficult it can be to make the kind of public statement you have made. We are very encouraged by your actions and want you to know that we are praying that God will protect, strengthen, guide and bless you.

We believe that your call for the church to fully include, love and accept ALL God’s children truly reflects the idea that Paul put forth in Galatians 5:6 when he wrote “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” We are forever hopeful that others will follow your wonderful example of faith expressing itself through love.

May God bless you all abundantly!

Abby De Fiesta Cortez

Adele Berardi

Alise D Chaffins

Alison Defrese

Allena Brown

Amanda Curtis Dwyer

Amy Hansley Moorehead

Angie Laws

Angie Silver

Anita Jewell Carter Cockrum

Ann Zweckbronner

Barb Cressy

Becky Cantrall

Beth Breems

Bethany Kirwen

Betsy Bruce Henning

Billie Jo Marrs

Bonnie Miranda

Bridget Murphy

Carie Poynor Downes

Carla Iturregui Picasso-Brown

Carla Short Spivey

Carol Beth Wiggins Baswell

Carol Fuss Reed

Carol Mason

Carole Bass

Caroline Williams Joyce

Carolyn Cage Johnston

Carrie Garske Shank

Cassy Taylor Campos

Cathleen Frantzen Schaber

Chasity Davis

Cheri Nill

Cheri Simpson

Cherie Walker

Cheryl Bakkila-Perkins

Chris Behne

Christie Hoos

Cindy Morgan

Colleen Kane

Crista Mason

Cyndi Silva Raugh

Cynthia Corsetti

Dana Huntington-Smith

Danette Mohring

Dawn Bellotti

Dawn Bennett Jones

Dawn Pulley Ervin

Deb Gallagher

Debbie McCullough Hayhurst

Debbie Wasielewski Tavarez

Debby McCrary

Debi Jackson

Debi Tucker Boland

Deborah Carlyle Enman

Dee-Ann Bodenheimer-Enslin

Deena Corwin Pfahler

Deleise Carper Brewer

Denise Ramirez-Tatum

Denise Trainer Webb

Derry Cronin Gleason

Diana Dermit McCarthy

Diane Blevins Smith

Diane Simms

Donna Holmes

Dorene Rose

Doris Wright

Elaine Falk Parker

Frances Lavender

Gena Rogers

Genell Brown

Georgi Persons

Gerry Phifer

Greta Medrano

Gretchen Doornek Mueller

Heather Clevenger

Heather Gee-Thomas

Heather McCracken Bottoms

Irene Gilliland

Jacqueline Rutledge

Jamie Hovland

Jammie Risley Hahn

Jan Pezant

Jan Roberts

Jan Wightman

Jane Clementi

Jane Moody

Janet Phillips

Janine Sarah Moore

Jaron Terry

Jennie Young-Walczyk

Jennifer Dunnam Stringfellow

Jennifer Hancock

Jennifer Schaffner Burkhardt

Jennifer Seeger

Jennifer Stake White

Jerri Surles Collins

Jessica Fahlgren

Jill Spicer

Joani Lea Jack

JoAnn Forsberg

Joann Thompson

Jody Miller Vanderzell

Joy Denton

Judie Brown Gordon

Judith K Volkar

Judy Witzel Harper

Julia Lunardo

Julie Bean Bisgaard

Julie Elliott O’Neal

Julie Greene

Julie Kennedy Eaton

Karen Adams

Karen Decker Kusserow

Kathi Nicholson

Kathryn Zentner

Kathy Green

Kathy Reim

Kathy Renne Post

Katie Jenifer

Katie Willhite Brooks

Katrina Black

Kay Kelley

Kay Otting

Kay Whistler

Kelli Henry Alamond

Kelli Lewis Decker

Kelly Beane

Kelly Rae Holiday

Kim Freeman Weill

Kim Kendall

Kim Lue

Kim McMahon

Kim Sonntag

Kimberly Jones

Kimberlyn Graham

Kori Pavkov

Kristi Kodos

Kristina Gromm

Kyle Jump

Lannette Sargent

Laura Beth Taylor

Laura Sparks Turner

LeAnn Fenner

Lenora Lea Gill

Lesa Edwards-Schepers

Lesley Davis

Leslie Jones Webster

Linda Baker

Linda Ling

Linda Rooney

Linda Slater Tow

Linda Wiebe Dickinson

Linda York O’Connell

Lisa Bray

Lisa Giordano Bontemps

Lisa Golden Dugger

Lisa MacGregor

Lisa Maniscalco Hildebrand

Lisa McCrystal Holley

Lisa Osborne

Lisa Reinhart Hard

Lisa Schramm

Lisa Scott Wofford

Liz Dyer

Loretta Davila

Lori Black Manning

Lori Bradley-Lewis

Lori Love-Wise

Lori Rogers

Lynette Joy

Lynn Kato

Madai Girard

Maleea Shaver Castillo

Mally Shell Hatch

Marcie Castiglione

Margi Wilmans

Margie Candler

Maria Breeden

Marianne Minier Walker

Marjorie Rudolph

Marlene Hoefer Brummond

Marlene Lund

Marsha Ladd

Martha Maust

Marti Parsons Grahl

Mary Estelle Montgomery

Mary Jo Whitley

Mary Kay Weil

Melea Broekers

Meredith Webster Indermaur

Merryl Dietz

Michele Freemyer Grabbe

Michele Manuel Fuselier

Michelle Bradshaw McComb

Millie Donnell

Miriam Pendley

Monica Maday

Monica-Niki Elenbaas

Morven Roberts Baker

Nancy Barron Booher

Nancy MacDonald

Nancy Thompson Flikkema

Nancy Villegas

Nancy Wance

Nichole Byers

Nicole Havlen Hair

Paige Gant

Pam Ensinger Antos

Pam Swendig

Patricia Sjöberg

Patti Atwood Grossman

Patti Mercer Churner

Patti Stratton

Paula Unrau

Pauline Carlson

Pauline Daly

Phyllis Barber

Rachel Drouillard

Rachel Sargent

Rebecca Hedges Lyon

Regina Pitts Woods

Renee Utley Bennink

Rev. Mally Baum

Rhonda Hartzell

Rita Daruvala

Rob Ullinger

Robin Gowan

Robinette Nacca-Cooke

Ʀosaııie Ĺane

Rose Stucchio

Roseanne M. Shannon

Rosemarie Varrichio Campbell

Roxanna Villars Gambrell

S. Anderson

Sandra Cathers

Sandra Van Dyne

Sandy Collins

Sandy McClure

Sara Cunningham

Sara Hoel May

Sarah Mills Holbrook

Sarah Thacker-Estell

Shannon Eaton

Shay Bisbee Haude

Shelley McBride

Sheri Martin

Sondy Eklund

Stacey Frazier

Stacey Jackson Baeumler

Stacy Gouge Drake

Sue Tresatti

Susan Berland

Susan Cloys Seaman

Susan Foss Naranjo-Stultz

Susan Hammontree Fortney

Susan Ledbetter

Susan Metcalf

Susan Wardzinski

Susy Rowe Barnhill

Suzanne Lambert Mann

Tamara Totoro Dick

Tammi Perkins

Tammy Flowers Mejdrich

Tammy Watson

Tammy Wenzinger

Tammy Wylie Barnes

Tamra Jennings

Tana Lightbown Hendricks

Teresa Medlin Poston

Teresa Parker

Teri Stueland Kay

Terri Cook

Terri Nolt

Terri Schempf

Theresa Moore Martinez

Tonda Campbell Hoyt

Tracie Sells

Tricia Johns Baumann

Tricia Kaufman- Waddell

Tricia Willard

Vicki Kemp Whorton

Vicki Westphal

Vicky Barnes

Zaneta Salde Encarnacion

Zenia Robertson

Serendipitydodah for Moms is a private Facebook group created as an extension of the Serendipitydodah blog. The group is secret so that only members can find it or see what is posted in the group. The group was started in June 2014 and presently has more than 1,000 members. The space was specifically created for open minded Christian moms who have LGBT kids and want to develop and maintain healthy, loving, authentic relationships with their LGBT kids. In addition to providing a space for members to share info and support one another, a special guest is added each month for a few days. The guests include authors, pastors, LGBT people, bloggers and public speakers.

For more info email lizdyer55@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE

CONTACT:
Dorothee Benz, 718-314-4432

Group of LGBTQI Methodist Clergy Comes Out,
in Defiance of Church Law

Fifteen members of the New York Conference sign letter, risking credentials

May 2, 2016, New York – In an unprecedented challenge to the United Methodist Church’s discriminatory policies excluding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from ministry, 15 UMC clergy and clergy candidates in the New York Annual Conference today released an open letter “to the people of the United Methodist Church” declaring, “We are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer clergy and candidates.” The public announcement is a chargeable offense under UMC law and exposes them to possible church trials, sanctions, and defrocking. While numerous individual clergy and clergy candidates in the denomination have come out in the past, this is the first time a group of ministers have taken action together. The move comes a week before the UMC’s quadrennial General Conference, which is expected to affirm the exclusionary rules amidst anticipated protests.

“The UMC demands that we lie about who we are in order to be in ministry,” the letter explains. “It does violence to our souls. It is the very opposite of the integrity that is foundational to ministry. This demand is fundamentally unjust, and we can no longer be complicit in upholding and reinforcing it. It is premised on a lie, codified in our Book of Discipline – that our lives are ‘incompatible with Christian teaching’ – and it does immense harm both to those whom it forces to harm themselves and to countless others to whom it communicates that there is something wrong with the way God created them.”

Said Rev. Sara Thompson Tweedy, the chair of Methodists in New Directions, which organized the group effort, “To stay silent and to stay closeted is to support our church’s unjust status quo. We cannot do that.” Tweedy faced an official complaint for being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” in 2013, which was dismissed after 14 months of investigation. “Given the intransigence of General Conference, the only way forward is for us to be the church we hope and pray our beloved denomination will one day become. Transformation of the church comes from below.”

Since 1972, the UMC has declared in its Book of Discipline that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” In subsequent General Conferences, it has added numerous discriminatory rules barring LGBTQI people from serving in ministry, minsters from performing weddings for same-sex couples, and church funds from being used to defend LGBTQI people’s human rights. Additionally, a 2005 UMC Judicial Council decision made it permissible for UMC pastors to bar LGBTQI people from membership in the church.

The UMC General Conference is the only body that can undo this systemic codified discrimination, but that body is dominated by a combination of U.S. and international conservatives that have blocked all efforts at reform for 40 years.

The institutional dead-end for equality advocates in the church has fueled the growth of an ecclesial disobedience movement, drawing inspiration and instruction from civil disobedience tactics and the non-violent resistance philosophy of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Since 2011, thousands of clergy and lay supporters across the denomination have banded together in annual conference networks to do weddings for all couples on an equal basis, in open defiance of the church’s rules.

Today’s collective action by New York Conference clergy represents the extension of that ecclesial disobedience strategy to the issue of ordination in the UMC.

“I’m inspired and encouraged by my colleagues of the New York Conference for their bold action today,” said Rev. Cynthia Meyer. “I’m grateful that we stand in solidarity together, in obedience to the Gospel, and in the strength of our call to ministry. Authentic, prophetic leadership requires challenging our denomination when it clings to rigid legalism, when it is wrong. The United Methodist Church is wrong when it continues to discriminate against the God’s beloved LGBTQI children.” Meyer is currently facing church charges for coming out to her congregation as a lesbian.

Bishop Melvin Talbert expressed a similar sentiment on April 23 when he told Buzzfeed, “I have to make a choice between my church and God, and I am choosing God,” referring to his decision to officiate at the wedding of Jim Wilborne and John Romano.

Talbert popularized the phrase “Biblical obedience” for the ecclesial disobedience movement in the UMC. The national Reconciling Ministries Network, with which MIND is affiliated, has started an “It’s Time” campaign in the run-up to General Conference.

The New York clergy letter ends with a call to action to others in the church:

“We call on LGBTQI United Methodist clergy and candidates everywhere to come out and join us in the refusal of further acquiescence to a system that silences and excludes queer people.

“We call on boards of ordained ministry to refuse to discriminate any longer and to publicly declare their refusal.

“We call on bishops to refuse to process complaints against LGBTQI people for being themselves.

“We call on all United Methodists everywhere to refuse their own complicity in our denomination’s systemic oppression of queer people and to protest this injustice at General Conference and elsewhere until it is finally ended.”

MIND has to be at General Conference in Portland, Oregon from May 10 through 20th when the United Methodist Church delegates gather to write the rules that will govern the church for the next four years. MIND is going so that we can hold the church accountable for discriminatory policies and hopefully prevent the codification of those policies for another four years.

Imagine what another four years will do to transgender youth struggling to find their place in the world and in the church…

Imagine the strain and difficulties placed upon LGBTQ clergy who are forced into a closet because the church does not affirm their committed relationship and is only concerned if two people are “practicing”…

Imagine another four years of ministerial candidates sitting before District Committees on Ministries and Boards of Ordained Ministries wishing they could can be honest about who they are and their call to serve the church…

Imagine another four years of irreparable harm perpetuated against sincerely committed gay and lesbian couples who are turned away from the rite of marriage in the very church that they attend and help to sustain…

Now imagine an inclusive United Methodist Church.

In order to send people to Portland, MIND needs your help. Sending an activist to General Conference for 10 days will cost approximately $1,000 per person. MIND would like to send a delegation of at least ten people. As of today, we have one person paid for! Nine more to go—and we can do this!

Here are ways you can help!

1. If you can make a donation to MIND to fund activists to attend General Conference please give via this button:

• Please note in description: “MIND GC2016”

2.  Mail your donation to Asbury United Methodist Church, 167 Scarsdale Rd., Tuckahoe, NY, 10707. Attn: “MIND GC2016”
3. Organize a fund drive in your congregation to sponsor someone to go to Portland in May.
4. If you are planning to attend General Conference for any reason and want to work with MIND on the ground, let us know that you are attending.
5. Share news from MIND about General Conference on social media!
6. Pray for our MIND activists and for change within the church.
7. Stay tuned!  We will have much more news in the coming months.