Release #027 {2891}April 22, 1996
DENVER (UMNS) -- Two days before First Lady Hillary Clinton is to speak to the United Methodist General Conference, delegates voted Monday morning not to invite Mrs. Bob Dole but sent her greetings and had a prayer for both the Clintons and Doles.
Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to speak at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 24. Well before the 10- day conference, President Clinton was asked to speak but declined because of his trip to Russia. Mrs. Clinton was invited then and her acceptance was made public here Friday, April 19.
The motion to invite Mrs. Dole, made by Charlie Appleby of Florence, South Carolina, was defeated by a 562-301 vote.
Appleby said an invitation to Mrs. Dole would be "one way to avoid sending confusing signals during an election year ... Like Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Dole has lifelong Methodist roots."
He praised Mrs. Dole's work with the American Red Cross and said her service there is "representative of the Methodist call to help the downtrodden and the oppressed."
John J. Thomas, Brazil, Ind., chairman of the commission that planned the conference, told delegates that a proposal to invite Mrs. Dole had come before his group twice. "On each occasion, after discussing the matter, the commission, by a majority vote, felt that to do so would be to inject perhaps more partisan politics into the matter than may be there now," he said.
Speaking against the invitation to Mrs. Dole was delegate Ron Bretsch, Norwood, N.Y., "As an enrolled Republican and a United Methodist, I would like to remind the body -- those of us from the United States -- we have one president at one time and we have one First Lady at one time."
Later in the Monday morning sessions, Austin Frederick Jr., Victoria, Texas, proposed that the delegates send a letter to Mrs. Dole expressing appreciation for her work with the Red Cross.
Presiding officer, Bishop William Boyd Grove of Albany, N.Y., declared that by common consent and no objection a letter of greeting and good wishes and appreciation would be sent to Mrs. Dole, "a faithful United Methodist."
Grove and most of the delegates were apparently unaware that Mrs. Dole is no longer a United Methodist.
Still later in the morning sessions, the Rev. Philip Wogaman, pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, explained that Mrs. Dole is now a Presbyterian. She transferred her membership last summer from Foundry to National Presbyterian Church in the nation's capitol.
President Clinton, a Southern Baptist, and Mrs. Clinton, a United Methodist, attend Foundry Church. Mr. Dole's membership is at Trinity United Methodist Church in his hometown of Russell, Kans.
"I have had the privilege of serving as pastor on behalf of Christ and the church to both President and Mrs. Clinton and to Senator and Mrs. Dole, the presumptive standard bearers of both parties in the upcoming election," Wogaman said. "I support both the invitation to the First Lady to speak and the letter to Mrs. Dole."
He then called for a moment of prayer for President and Mrs. Clinton and Mr. and Mrs. Dole. Leading the assembly in prayer was Bishop Joseph H. Yeakel, episcopal leader of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.
-- Thomas S. McAnally
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