#GC2019 Day Two Summary

I'm tired. And I'm grumpy. So I probably shouldn't write this tonight; I should probably sleep now and write tomorrow. But I have something to say, and I want to say it now.

As I walked out of the building tonight, a bullhorn guy on the street corner saw my "One Church" pin and shouted at me, "I'm glad you lost, homo!"

As stunned as I was at his raw homophobia, I was also struck with his knowledge of what had just transpired on the floor of General Conference. I thought, "How did he know that I 'lost,' getting the word of that so quickly, much less understanding what my pin meant and the intricacies of our legislative process?"

So, let me try to explain...

It's really hard for me to equate the work of the General Conference with ... well, anything. It's a hairball. It's a gigantic entangled mess of rules and processes and motions, all of which have to be translated into multiple languages along the way.

I apologize if I ever said anything that made it seem like we would be getting a ballot that said: Gay Marriage - Check 1 for "Yes" and Check 2 for "No" and then a second similar one for ordination. Our system just doesn't work that way.

I also apologize if I ever said anything that made anyone think we would be getting a ballot that had three plans listed on it and we just checked which one was our favorite. Again, our system just doesn't work that way.

First, people submit petitions, and there are 25 or so petitions in addition to the three plans the Bishops sent us. The petitions are assigned to legislative committees, who prioritize them, discuss them, perhaps amend them, and vote to recommend them or not. Then the petitions go to the plenary (the whole group), along with the legislative committee's recommendation, at which time they can be discussed, perhaps amended, and the whole group votes on whether or not we agree with the legislative committee's recommendation, whatever that was. If the petition makes it all the way through all of that, it gets added to the Book of Discipline or Book of Resolutions, depending.

That is the simplest possible explanation of the work; believe me it gets way more complicated than that.

So what we did was decide that we as the whole group are going to function as the legislative committee first, and then after that function as the plenary. That was actually decided before we got here. So every petition was assigned to us, the whole group - as the legislative committee.

The next step is to prioritize the petitions, normally done by a relatively smaller group and given to the committee. But this time the prioritization process included ALL of us. We were shown a list of all the plans or petitions, and asked which we considered a high priority and which we considered a low priority, just 1 for high and 2 for low. (We considered each plan as one unit, not the individual petitions that go with each one.)

Out of the top six plans or petitions on our priority list, four of them are specific to how churches might choose to leave the denomination. One was the legislation from Wespath, our pension company. Three were particular "Disaffiliation" plans by which congregation can be relieved of financial obligations for leaving the denomination.

That means that we, as a General Conference, are more concerned about deciding how people will leave the UMC and the implications of those exits than we are about inclusion of LGBTQ people.

Of the plans themselves, the Traditional Plan got 459 top priority votes. The One Church Plan got 403 top priority votes. The Simple Plan got 153. The Connectional Conference Plan got 102.

The Traditional Plan is the second highest priority on the list, right after the Wespath legislation. The One Church Plan is the fifth highest priority.

We will consider them as the legislative committee, in order of priority, starting tomorrow. (We actually already considered the Wespath legislation, which was recommended to the plenary quite easily.)

So I say all of that to say this - it's a mess. General Conference is inherently a big clumsy mess.

And yet somehow bullhorn guy knew that the "One Church Plan" had "lost" a procedural vote today.

My deepest heartbreak is that over half of the delegates thought the Traditional Plan was a top priority, and that was devastating, disheartening news to so many in the LGBTQ community, their families, friends, and allies.

And what makes me mad is to think that a United Methodist Traditional Plan supporter may have taken the time to let bullhorn guy know what had happened, so he could add ridicule to his homophobic ranting. In fact it infuriates me.

"I'm glad you lost, homo."

I'm really sleepy now. It's midnight. I'm just going to publish this and go to sleep. What is tomorrow going to bring? Only God knows.

Thank you for praying, for watching the live stream, for sending messages of encouragement and support. Thank you. I still feel you, and I'm still working hard to do the right thing, to change our unjust policy and allow full inclusion in our church.

But now I'm just tired and grumpy, so ... good night.