Group Protests Lesbian Activist as Speaker at Methodist Women's Quadrennial
by Jim Brown
May 4, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A coalition of evangelical United Methodist women is protesting a keynote speaker at a large event for Methodist women beginning tonight in Anaheim, California. The denomination's Women's Division is being accused of defying church law by inviting a lesbian activist to address the gathering.
On Saturday morning, lesbian activist and musician Emily Saliers of the group "Indigo Girls" will speak to more than 8,000 women at the United Methodist Women's Assembly. Saliers will appear with her father, Don, a professor at Candler School of Theology. The event takes place every four years and is a gathering of female leaders with the United Methodist Church (UMC).
Fay Short heads RENEW, a network for evangelical women with the UMC. Short says the United Methodist Women's Division (UMW) rejected her group's request that the invitation to Emily Saliers be withdrawn.
"The Methodist Federation for Social Action and Reconciling Ministries, both of which favor the acceptance of homosexual practice, also began to send messages to the Women's Division asking that the Salierses be retained as speakers," she explains. "So, in light of that, the Women's Division at their last board meeting decided that they would not withdraw that invitation."
UMW reportedly has claimed that the female musician will not promote homosexuality at the conference. But Short says that does not remedy the impression Ms. Saliers' presence will leave. "Even if [she] does not openly advocate for the acceptance of homosexual practice in the Assembly presentations, her public recognition as a lesbian icon puts the Women's Division in the place of endorsing the lesbian lifestyle and of offending the women of the church," says Short.
Short also contends that most women in the denomination would be "distressed" to learn that money they had raised is going to "spotlight" a lesbian activist. "The Assembly's platform should not be offered to someone who publicly defies Christian teachings," she says.
The RENEW president believes that by inviting the younger Saliers, the United Methodist Women's Division is testing the denomination's long-held stance that "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Since 1972 the UMC has officially condemned the homosexual lifestyle.
"Our concern is not directed against Emily Saliers as a person," Short offers, "but it is directed in support of the standard of the United Methodist Church regarding homosexual practice that says we understand homosexuals to be persons of sacred worth, but the practice to be incompatible with Christian teaching."
According to Short, four years ago the UMW Assembly hosted another speaker who is a lesbian activist.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
