By over 60 percent, North Carolina voters recently approved a state constitutional amendment called Amendment One defining marriage as the union of man and woman. Here is the amendment’s entire text:
“Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.”
The United Methodist Church also has a stance on civil marriage. Since 2000, the church’s Social Principles have said: “We support laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”
But oddly, the two United Methodist bishops in North Carolina joined with liberal clergy in publicly opposing Amendment One. The names of Bishop Al Gwinn of the North Carolina Conference and Bishop Larry Goodpaster of the Western North Carolina Conference were highlighted in a full page anti-amendment newspaper ad in The News and Observer of Raleigh on May 6, They were joined by Episcopal Bishops Michael Curry, Clifton Daniel and Porter Taylor, two Presbyterian Church (USA) General Moderators, Douglas Oldenburg and Price Gwinn, the head of the North Carolina Council of Churches, plus officials from the Unity Fellowship Church Movement and the Progressive Pentecostal Church of the Triad.
Here is the ad: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Greensboro-District-e-News—Duke-s-Ramblings—Amendment-One.html?soid=1103648265479&aid=-IX8PASv1A0
And here is what it declared:
“Amendment One is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. As Christians, we have a responsibility to speak out and stop this Amendment before it can cause irreparable harm to the least of these-children, battered women, and widows–in North Carolina.
Amendment One claims to protect marriage and family, but the rush to get it on the ballot resulted in sloppy language that will have devastating consequences. Rather than protecting families, the poor wording of Amendment One will cut kids off from their parents’ health care, put widows at risk of losing survivor benefits and battered women at risk of losing legal protections and access to shelters.
Regardless of one’s position on marriage, we cannot allow children, battered women, and widows to pay the price for a sloppily written and rushed amendment. Any Amendment asking us to sacrifice the most vulnerable among us to supposedly protect religion and family doesn’t understand the point of either faith or family.
Spread the Word, and on May 8, VOTE AGAINST Amendment One.”
So the ad, while opposing defining marriage as the union of man and woman, claimed to speak in defense of children, battered women and widows. Now that that the amendment has passed, we can see whether these warnings were anywhere near valid. Revealingly, the head of the North Carolina Council of Churches, in a statement after the vote, said nothing about the supposed threat to children, battered women and widows. Instead, he more straightforwardly complained of “discrimination written into our constitution,” and warned of “years of court cases,” which he no doubt hopes will overturn the people’s vote on Amendment One.
The voices of declining denominations, embodied by the North Carolina Council of Churches, were largely ignored by North Carolina voters. More influential was elderly evangelist Billy Graham, who unusually spoke out from retirement in defense of Amendment One. “Watching the moral decline of our country causes me great concern,” he said in a statement that appeared in newspaper ads. “I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.”
Sadly, United Methodist bishops in North Carolina seem unconcerned about protecting marriage or even the official stance of their own denomination. The Southeast Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church will elect 5 new bishops in July, and hopefully at least some of them will be more concerned.
Thank you for pointing out that Bishops Gwinn and Goodpaster opposed this discriminatory law. I will be sure to thank them. here is a quote from Bishop Grant Hagiya of Washington state:
“I also personally grieve over our United Methodist Church polity that will not recognize same-sex marriage. I believe that it is wrong, and we should work for a more inclusive and humane response.”
How are bishops elected? Also, how is the head of GBCS hired?
As a UM pastor in Texas, I find it disturbing that we have bishops who represent God and our denomination as its leaders, yet they speak against Biblical truths and oppose our denomination’s stance on these truths. I have on too often had to explain to church members how bishops are elected and remain in their position in spite of their views opposing the UMC. When many UMC members I know of learn of the stance and actions of some of our biships their first reaction is disbelief.
And as a church it seems that we spend too much time capitulating to the world and trying just to fill the pews that we have abandoned our “desire to flee from the wrath to come, to be saved from [our] sins.” This is demonstrated by the time and focus of topics at GC and other church agencies.
As a UM pastor in Colorado, I’m proud of these bishops! Marriage does not need “protecting” and our stance within the denomination really is split regardless of the words in the Discipline.
Once the uniqueness of heterosexual marriage is jettisoned, the sky will be the limit. These Bishops are unwisely aligning themselves with sexual liberationists who, truth be told, want to throw off any restrictions on sexual behavior.
Using their logic there should be no objection to the marriage of any number of consenting adults (for example, if we are both of legal age, why should I not be able to marry my sister? Or my son? Using the “reasoning” of sexual liberationists this would be considered a “civil right”).
These bishops are disregarding Scripture and reason in not supporting traditional marriage. Liberal theology is clearly on a track to eventually relegate the Bible to being little more that a religious relic. You certainly don’t have to be a Biblical literalist to conclude that.
While different members of our church may have different views on this issue, we cannot claim to be a blblically based church and at the same time fail to condemn sin. The blblical witness is unanimously against homosexuality. At no place in the Bible are same sex relationships spoken of approvingly. We are strongly called to love our neighbors. We are also called to condemn sin, because that is what seperates us from God