United Methodists strike down ban on ordination of gay clergy
Bishop Tracy Malone, president of the United Methodist's Council of Bishops, in purple suit, joins a crowd of LGBTQ people and allies celebrating the striking down of a ban on the ordination of gay clergy at the UMC general conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 1. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)
United Methodists meeting for their top legislative assembly May 1 overwhelmingly overturned a measure that barred gay clergy from ordination in the denomination, a historic step for the nation’s second-largest Protestant body.
With a simple vote call and without debate, delegates to the general conference removed the ban on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals”—a prohibition that dates to 1984.
With that vote, the worldwide denomination of some 11 million members joins the majority of liberal Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the United Church of Christ, which also ordain LGBTQ clergy.
