General Conference 2019, Day 3

It was a long day in the Dome at America’s Center, as General Conference delegates worked as a legislative committee to advance the petitions that it prioritized yesterday. In regular General Conference gatherings, different legislative committees review petitions in specific areas, before sending them to the plenary body for possible adoption. Because this is a special session that is only three days long and all the petitions relate to the church’s policies on sexuality, the full body of delegates served today as a single legislative committee, and tomorrow will be convened as the plenary body to vote on which ones to enact.

The morning was devoted to the Traditional Plan, and proponents of the plan were engaged in making a series of amendments to the plan in order to skirt the numerous elements that have been ruled unconstitutional by the UMC Judicial Council. The body called for a vote in the middle of this process, and although the plan passed, large parts still do not comply with the UMC constitution.

The committee then passed two different petitions dealing with disaffiliation, despite speeches pointing out that this special General Conference was not called to dismantle the church, but to find a “way forward” together. After lunch, the body turned to the One Church Plan, which was not approved to come before the plenary tomorrow – a huge disappointment for the many who saw this as the best chance for remaining “United” Methodists, and for the Commission on a Way Forward (COWF) members who put so much of themselves into crafting it. (For details on these plans, see previous blog post.)

As it was late in the day, a delegate moved to reject all the other petitions, which included the COWF’s Connectional Conference Plan, more proposals for disaffiliation, and various petitions related to human sexuality. Dorothee Benz, a lay person and LGBTQ activist, pointed out that the Simple Plan was the only one that caused no harm to queer people and offered an amendment to remove it from the list of petitions to be dismissed.

The Simple Plan is so named because it simply removes all the restrictive language about sexuality in the UMC’s Book of Discipline. The plan did not come from the COWF, but was submitted by the group UM Queer Caucus. Even as delegates admitted that the plan would be defeated, they agreed to discuss it, allowing for impassioned pleas from LGBTQ delegates in favor of the plan. They also filled the queue to speak against it, claiming it did not go far enough. These emotional speeches gave visibility and a hearing to LGBTQ United Methodists, who are, after all, the subject of this special General Conference.

If this had been a movie, the Simple Plan would have been approved, and the underdogs would have won the day. The supporters of the Traditional Plan, who have been so confident in things going their way, would be left standing, jaws dropped, wondering what just happened. The love and inclusion expressed by those speaking to the Simple Plan would have triumphed over the fear and division promoted by traditionalists. But this is not a “feel good” movie, and, as expected, the Simple Plan was defeated.

So, what happens now? The Judicial Council was asked to make a declarative ruling on the constitutionality of all the legislation that was passed today and will be taken up by the plenary body of the General Conference tomorrow. It is likely that a good deal of the day will be taken up with amendments to the Traditional Plan, with the hope of leaving this session with something in place, even if it not what many had hoped for.

That doesn’t mean that defeated petitions are dead in the water, because they can be re-introduced tomorrow as minority reports. However, given that it is the same body of delegates that voted them down today, they would be unlikely to succeed tomorrow. Progressive and mainstream caucuses are engaged in strategy sessions this evening to explore ways they might disrupt the process and steer the proceedings to a different outcome, while conservatives are no doubt planning how to get the Traditional Plan past both the delegates and the Judicial Council.

The longer term implications are unclear. The disaffiliation plans that were approved cannot begin to address the chaos that will ensue throughout and at all levels of the denomination. More on that will be forthcoming, as whatever 864 delegates pass tomorrow becomes the lived reality of 12 million United Methodists around the world.