TITLE: Gays Still Face Discrimination
Release # 012 {2876} April 18, 1996
General Conference '96
DENVER (UMNS) -- In 1991, Steve Marlatt, a gay man, and his partner were active members of a United Methodist congregation in Southern California.
Then a new pastor arrived. "Your type is not needed here," he told the pair.
Marlatt was among the speakers at an April 18 press conference and rally sponsored by the Reconciling Congregation Program (RCP). An independent United Methodist movement, RCP counts 130 members -- churches, campus ministries, annual (regional) conferences and others -- that welcome homosexual and bisexual people into the church.
The organization's "Open the Doors" campaign at the denomination's 1996 General Conference, meeting here April 16-26, supports legislative change that would ban discrimination in churches based on sexual orientation.
Placards at the rally displayed the names of more than 10,000 people proclaiming themselves as "reconciling United Methodists."
Marlatt recalled the pain of his own dismissal by the church pastor. "He was not antagonistic," he explained. "But his feeling was church was no place for a sinner."
Katherine Fuller of Willoughby, Ohio, lamented that her daughter, Marjorie, cannot fulfill a long-time dream of being ordained in the United Methodist Church because she is a lesbian.
"I was and am fully able to support my daughter," she said. "Now, if only the church would support her, too."
A United Methodist pastor in New York State would not baptize the son of Lynn Miller, a lifelong church member, because he is being raised in a lesbian household. And Diana Chalfant, a coach with a winning record, was fired from a United Methodist college in Kentucky because of her sexual orientation.
Chalfant does, however, take solace in her involvement with Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tenn., a reconciling congregation. The church, its pastor and members "did and still do give me the strength to get through the week," she said.
The Rev. Karen Oliveto, pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church in San Francisco and chairperson of the RCP board, noted that as long as such discrimination exists in the denomination, "our fellowship is flawed and the body of Christ is weakened."
--Linda Bloom
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