Parents
of homosexual children are often in conflict with the teaching of their church.
In some cases this causes serious problems within the family. But most of these
families realize the church is wrong and ignore their church and go on with
healthy, loving relationships with their children. But even for these families,
sometimes the United Methodist Church refuses to be ignored and causes deep
hurt to its members.
Here
are two examples, one from our lives and one hypothetical.
Our
third son is gay. Ricky was baptized in the UMC, attended Sunday school most
Sundays, joined a confirmation class, joined the church, was a member of the
Methodist Youth Fellowship, and in his mid-20s felt the call to the ministry.
He attended Claremont Seminary and was selected by the faculty and his fellow
students to give the senior address at his graduation. However, in his first real
encounter with the homophobic nature of his church, the seminary refused to let
him speak, saying they could not let a gay man give that address. Becoming a
minister in the UMC was out of the question, and today Rick is the senior minister
at the large Unitarian Universalist Church in downtown Los Angles. Our church
has lost a wonderful minister.
A
hypothetical situation, but one that will happen more and more in the future is
this. A young man or woman has the same background as Ricky but attends a state
university, joins the Wesley Foundation, falls in love and obtains from the
state a license to marry, only to find their home church will not allow them to
be married there. Neither their home church pastor nor the Wesley Foundation director
will marry them.
We
have no doubts that in a few years the leaders of the UMC will, as they did to
our African-American members, apologize for their unchristian teachings. It
needs to come soon.
