General Conference 2016 endorsements

Voting members of the New York Annual Conference will be electing NYAC’s delegation to the 2016 General and Jurisdictional Conferences at this year’s annual conference meeting. It is crucial that our conference, with its prophetic history of supporting the needs of people of color, women, immigrants and LGBTQ people alike, elect a strong progressive delegation that makes a visible and vocal witness. General Conference is the governing body of the United Methodist Church and the only body that has the formal ability to change the language that has condemned and excluded LGBTQ people since 1972. There is a conservative majority in the UMC that makes changes to the Book of Discipline at best very unlikely, and this makes electing a bold, savvy team that will work for justice inside and outside the legislative sessions even more important. While the discrimination against LGBTQ people is the only prejudice currently codified in our denomination’s rules, it is far from the only bias we must battle. At the 2012 General Conference, the same forces that tried to strengthen the anti-gay rules further also tried to abolish the General Commission on Race and Religion, the Committee on the Status and Role of Women and the historic commitment to guaranteed appointments, which has served to counter ongoing prejudice against non-male and non-white clergy. It is imperative that our delegation fight against repetition of these efforts as well as fighting for the rights of LGBTQ people in our church.

To these ends, MIND proudly and enthusiastically endorses the following candidates:

For lay delegate:

For clergy delegate:

If you are a voting member of annual conference, we urge you to give these candidates your support and to ask other voting members to do the same. If you’re not a voting member, we ask that you speak to the voting members from your congregation and encourage them to support these candidates. The most effective support is word-of-mouth.