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The Newsletter of the Interfaith Working Group
April 1998
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Life Partnership Publicity
On the morning of Thursday, March 19, William Devlin,
of the
Urban Family Council of Philadelphia,
led a hundred people through City Hall to denounce
the life partnership bills in a so-called "campaign
of love." They received coverage on the six
o'clock channel 6 and ten o'clock channel 29 news,
channel 29 inexplicably opening and closing with
slow-motion, soft focus shots of mixed-gender weddings.
Coincidentally, we released our
statement
concerning
the public religious debate of the bill on the evening
of March 19 at a press conference at
Tabernacle United Church.
The printed statement included the six congregations,
six religious organizations and fifty-six clergy on
our letterhead, plus an additional nineteen clergy
and another congregation who also wished to endorse
the statement, bringing the total to eighty-eight
people or groups from sixteen religious traditions
(sixty percent higher than the total on the June 1996
statement). We did not attract the broadcast media, but
there was more balanced coverage in the Inquirer
and Daily News, turning pieces that might
have focused on religious attacks on sexual minorities
into stories about religious debates over sexual
orientation.
Letterhead Update
We are pleased to announce the addition of Rabbi
Sue Levi Elwell to our
list of official supporters.
Thanks For Your Help
Thanks are due to everyone who has supported the
IWG in this effort: all of our letterhead
supporters, including Rev. Andrew Barasda, Rev.
David Brown, Rev. Katie Day, Rev. Jim Littrell,
Rev. Ben Maucere, Rev. Patricia Pearce, and
Father Paul Washington, who attended the press
conference; Rev. Jeff Jordan
(MCC Phila.),
and Marie Summers
(President of
Dignity/Phila.) for
coming to the press conference and endorsing the
statement; and the other endorsers:
Rabbi Richard Address
(Union of American Hebrew Congregations),
Rev. Judith Beck
(St. Peter's Episcopal, Germantown),
Rev. Roger Broadley
(St. Luke and the Epiphany),
Rev. Warren Cedarholm
(Eastern PA
Methodist Federation for Social Action),
Rev. Sandra Ellis-Killian
(American Baptist Church Clergy),
Rev. Barry Harte
(University Lutheran
Church of the Incarnation),
Rev. Richard Lichty
(Germantown Mennonite
Church),
Rabbi Mordechai Leibling
(Jewish Reconstructionist Federation),
Rev. Dwight Lundgren
(First Baptist Church of Phila.),
Father Isaac Miller
(Church of the Advocate),
Rev. Marian P. Shearer
(St. Luke's UCC),
Rev. Fergus A. Smith
(First Presbyterian Church of Phila.),
Rev. William E. Stone
(St. Stephen's UCC),
Rev. Jim Taylor
(Christ Church in Phila.),
Rev. Louis Temme
(Trinity Memorial Episcopal),
Rev. Tom Torosian
(retired, Presbytery of Phila.),
Rev. Sharon Vandergrift
(First UMC of Roxborough),
and Rev. Kenneth Wells
(Glading Memorial Presbyterian).
Jimmy Creech Trial
In Kearney, NE on March 13, the Rev. Jimmy Creech
was found not guilty of violating the Order and
Discipline of the
United Methodist Church
by a church jury of his peers. Nine of thirteen
votes were needed to convict; they got eight.
CNN carried the verdict live; the
Los Angeles Times, New York Times,
Washington Post and AP also covered it.
An Omaha World Herald article said
Nebraska United Methodists who dismissed Creech's
trial as local could look at who had
"flocked into the state...to see how wrong they
were."
Rev. Mel White,
UFMCC
Minister of Justice, reported daily on the trial;
during jury selection he wrote of "...other witnesses
standing ready in the memories of these jurors,
unseen witnesses living and dead, lesbian and gay
witnesses whose words still echoed, whose smiles
still lingered, whose tears still flowed in the
minds and hearts of those thirty-five United
Methodist clergy... Jimmy's chief counsel... brought
those ghosts to life... 'Have you known any gay
people,' he asked them, 'and if you have, how have
they affected your life?"
Before the verdict, Proclaiming the Vision released
a statement, now signed by over a hundred UMC pastors,
indicating "...their intent to celebrate rites of
union with all couples, regardless of gender," and
regardless of the verdict. Afterward, conservatives
threatened to leave the UMC and join the
Presbyterian Church (USA);
a later press release from the conservative group
Good News
suggested that Creech's supporters "seek another
church fellowship...[with] views...compatible with
their own. This would be...more loving than...
[forcing] upon the UMC a radically revisionistic
moral standard."
The Raleigh News and Observer ran an analysis
by Jim Jenkins saying that activist clergy like Creech
win support of mainstream congregations when they take
good care of them; there have been many letters in
the Omaha World Herald, including some urging
members of Creech's church to visit other churches;
Deb Price wrote a syndicated column about him;
a Toledo Blade columnist ran a story about
two local United Methodist Church pastors who
support him; on the Monday after the trial, the
Charlotte Observer profiled the
First UMC of Charlotte,
saying roughly one hundred of the three-hundred
twenty-five people present on any given Sunday are gay;
The State of Columbia, SC, interviewed local
Methodist pastors; the Philadelphia Inquirer
ran only an AP story on Saturday, the day after the
trial.
Bishop Martinez has asked the UMC Judicial Council
for a ruling on whether the prohibition against
same-sex union ceremonies is compulsory. Rev. Creech
returned to his pulpit March 15, with a standing
ovation from his congregation, and the
Phelps family
picketing.
Media Frenzy
Papers around the country are reporting and
editorializing about the Creech Trial, the
University Baptist
expulsion; Rev. Steve Sabin; the
Boy Scouts;
the defeat of Amendment A and the upcoming
elder ordination trials in the
PCUSA;
the Maine vote;
the announcement by the
Christian Coalition
that they are returning to a largely anti-gay agenda;
marriage legislation in Kentucky, West Virginia
and Maryland; and three pending State Supreme Court
marriage cases in Hawaii, Vermont, and Alaska.
Some journalists have noticed a pattern: a Ft.
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel story about the
defeat of Amendment A also mentioned the
upcoming PCUSA trials (involving a local elder), the
Jimmy Creech trial, and the Bishop Righter trial.
The Omaha World Herald reported on a study
by United Methodist theologians and bishops titled
"In search of Unity," which said that issues related
to homosexuality represent a challenge "so deep as
to harbor the danger of explicit disunity or schism."
The story also touched on Steve Sabin and Amendment A.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about
local clergy opposed to the ordination rules in
the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the ban on union
ceremonies in the United Methodist Church.
Steve Kloehn of the Chicago Tribune wrote
an excellent analysis of the debate over sexual
orientation in Protestant denominations. In the
last thirteen years, 762 stories about homosexuality
and religion appeared in the Tribune (there
would have been more, but "they are beginning to
jostle with one another for space"). Kloehn said
the debate includes scriptural approaches, reconciling
scripture with conscience and modern culture,
understanding seeming contradictions, understanding the
authority of the church, and its relationship to
personal belief. These stories, he said, "may only
be the beginning of the story."
Other News from the Protestant Great Debate
Rev. Steve Sabin, of
Lord of Life Lutheran Church
in Ames, IA,
has been granted extension of his ordination until
his appeal is heard (possibly September).
In the
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Amendment A was defeated, leaving the denomination
to spend another year under the effects of last
year's Amendment B, and another year of potentially
explosive debate over sexual orientation. Rev.
Gene Robinson, Canon of the Ordinary Province
of New Hampshire and executive secretary of the
Province of New England, is one of five nominees
who may succeed the Rt. Rev. John Spong as Bishop
of Newark, NJ. If elected, he would be the first
openly gay Episcopal Bishop.
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