While Massachusetts confronts the actuality of gay marriage, I spent this weekend hangin' with the Lutherans in Evansville, Indiana, debating the theory of gay marriage. At the annual meeting of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of Garrison Keillors's favorite church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Topic A was the role of gays in the church. Should they be allowed to marry? Should they be ordained?
The Lutheran Church, like most Christian churches, is in a long conversation about gays. There's been a formal study and facilitated conversation on the subject for several years. Churches nominate and elect representatives to the Synod meeting, and those representatives gather once a year to enact legislation, elect officers and pass a budget. The Indiana-Kentucky Synod -- the regional church body that reports up the chain of command to the national ELCA -- is one of the more conservative Synods in the country. One look at the elderly, polyester-clad attendees trundling through the Evansville Convention Center would tell you pretty much what you needed to know about how the I-K Synod felt about gays.
There was also political intrigue: One of the agenda items was the election of a Bishop, and the incumbant, James Stuck, had recently received a devastating review from his serving pastors. The review cited a lack of leadership, much of it based on his decision, a year before, to table every single resolution relating to the role of gays in the church. Bishop Stuck is an almost pathologically reasonable man, soft-spoken, caring and sincere. But he hasn't provided much in the way of direction on the issue of gays, which is an issue that clearly threatens the constinued existence of the ELCA.
This year, however, in what was widely interpreted as an attempt to shore up his conservative flank and ave his job, Bishop Stuck took the extraordinary step of speaking out, from the podium, in favor of several resolutions affirming the traditional view that homosexuals are not entitled to full participation in the church. The resolutions had been put forward by vociferous opponents of gay marriage and ordination. The resolutions were either largely symbolic or called on the national church to take certain actions.
It was interesting to note that the Synod re-elected Bishop Stuck, but only just barely. He required 400 votes for re-election, and he got exactly 400 votes. That was perhaps a bit tidy, and more than one person raised an eyebrow at the vote total. Lutherans -- myself included -- are not given to the belief that their leaders would rig an election, so we went on without controversy. In doing that, we missed something significant: Given the Lutheran tradition of re-electing bishops by acclamation, a single vote majority indicated that maybe this was not going to be an event of unalloyed gay bashing.
The resolutions put forward by the anti-gay crowd were a mixed bag designed to thwart even the consideration of revising the role of homosexuals in the church. One demanded a two-thirds majority to change the rules; another affirmed that all pastors needed to be celibate unless they were married; a third mandated that decisions of the relatively liberal American should only be made in consultation with the very conservative Lutheran churches in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania.
The most ridiculous resolution was called, in the Agenda, R-4-05. In it's original form, R-4-05 would have made the doctrine of the ELCA subservient to Indiana state law. The original draft of the motion included an endorsement from Indiana State Representative Clyde Kersey, who said:
The Indiana General Assembly has already assed legislation banning gay marriage. This legislation also specified that marriage between person of the same gender is void in Indiana, even if it is held valid in another state. You will be pleased to know that this law has been upheld so far.
The committee that reviews motions like this changed the wording, striking out the endorsement of the Indiana legislator and cutting the language in the actual resolution that banned the church from going against state law.
The changes made R-4-05 an up-or-down vote on banning "same-sex unions." (Technically, it was a Resolution to demand that the national church "not adopt any policy which would authorize the blessing of same-sex unions.") I sat there with my teeth grinding. The synod, perhaps reflecting the Bishop's desire to preserve his position, had endorsed the resolution, and most Synod-endorsed resolutions pass almost unanimously.
The room was packed with representatives from tiny churches across rural Indiana, one of the most conservatives areas of the country and a last refuge of the Ku Klux Klan. I sat at a table of Hoosiers so stoney-faced, elderly, and out-of-touch with their times that they could have posed for a Diane Arbus photograph. They were the kind of grumpy old people who have aluminum awnings over the picture windows of their ranch houses, who shout at kids that step on their lawns, and disapprove of everything that's changed since the Eisenhower Administration. Their faces showed evident disgust at the whole conversation.
When it came to a vote all but one raised their voices against the resolution. None of them spoke; none of them smiled or acted all that enthusiastic about what they were doing. They just silently cast their votes against their own church leadership and in favor of at least considering the possibility that gays might be children of God with the same rights and responsibilities as anyone else. Each voted his or her conscience without discussion, and all around the room people who I'd have bet would have voted to ban gay marriage, gay ordination, and even gay presense on the planet, raised their voices against the measure.
The resolution lost by a significant majority.
This doesn't mean, of course, that they would have voted for gay marriage and ordination. I'm pretty secure in my guess that they wouldn't. But they voted in favor of going forward with open hearts and minds, and that, in Evansville, Indiana, is a victory.
Comments