Text of Rocky Mountain Conference Clergy Statement

Below is the text of the ad paid for and signed by Bishop Warner H Brown, Jr. and 124 clergy members of the Rocky Mountain Conference. See my post from yesterday for a reference to the Denver Post article reporting on this bold action.

"As United Methodist Clergy serving as Spiritual Leaders in the Rocky Mountain Conference, we stand in public opposition to the recent Judicial Council ruling of the United Methodist Church giving a clergyperson in Virginia the authority to deny church membership to an individual based on sexual identity.

"We proclaim our vigorous disagreement with this act of injustice by the highest judicial body of our denomination. The United Methodist Church is committed to inclusiveness; and inclusiveness denies every semblance of discrimination. The vision of hospitality for our church is Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors."

The conservative Wesley Blog gives us a parade example of conservative whining. I don't mean to be mean, but it seems to me that conservatives like to accuse progressives of whining when they engage in a good deal of it themselves. In this case Shane complains that the Denver Post's article did not have, in his opinion, the proper spin and that the Denver Post should not have reported the story at all because it represents a conflict of interest to report on the doings of an advertiser (in this case the 124 clergy signing the ad who paid $100 a piece for the privilege of making this public statement). Don't buy into Shane's own "spin," but read the article yourself--it reads like a proper news story reporting the facts and seeking quotes from spokespeople on "both sides" concluding with a comment from a regular operative in the "Republican Noise Machine," ex-CIA agent, Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Shane is certainly within his rights to criticize the actual position taken by the 124 Rocky Mountain clergy, but whining about the way the action was reported, or that it was reported at all, seems to me not to contribute to the dialogue now going on in the church. As it is, Shane seems to be "spinning" himself--trying to discount or minimize the plain fact that 124 clergy, including a Bishop, have taken a clear and courageous stand against the activist Judicial Council's legislating the closure of the United Methodist "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors."