Surgeon Nominee Says
He Didn’t Really Mean It

July 20, 2007
United Methodist News Service

It was uncertain in July, after a stormy Senate hearing July 12, whether a United Methodist nominee for U.S. surgeon general will eventually be confirmed. Dr. James Holsinger, Jr., told the hearing that a 1991 paper he wrote on homosexuality does not reflect his position today.

He was president of United Methodist Judicial Council as it rendered adverse decisions on LGBT people being UM pastors or LGBT lay people even being church members. At the meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sen. Edward Kennedy accused him of avoiding all science available, even in 1991, in order to conform to an ideological viewpoint.

The paper, delivered to a UM committee as it prepared to report to the 1992 General Conference, was not intended to serve as a medical treatise, the nominee said. Holsinger stressed that he is committed to providing quality health care to everyone, and cited the heat he took as Kentucky’s director of health when he supported a women’s health conference that included a session on care for lesbians.

Gay Man Denied Membership Now Accepted

April 13, 2007
United Methodist Reporter

The gay man of South Hill (Va.) UMC who was denied membership has now, with a change in pastors, been accepted into membership there. The Rev. Barry Burkholder accepted the man’s transfer of membership during worship services March 11. “Christ the Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another. This is my definition (of membership),” he said. The Rev. Edward H. Johnson had refused to receive the man into membership in 2005, saying the man would not repent of living a homosexual lifestyle. Mr. Johnson is now pastor at Dahlgren (Va.) UMC.

National UMC Group Advises
Dropping Language of Exclusion

March 2007
Good News Magazine

The Study of Ministry Commission, a group charged by the 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church "to bring clarity to the ordering of lay, licensed, and ordained ministry" has issued a report. It wants to delete Paragraph 304 of the 2004 Book of Discipline (the UMC rule book). That's the paragraph that says anyone who wants to be a clergyperson must maintain "fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness" and makes it official UMC policy that "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." The commission makes the recommendation to delete the paragraph to the 2008 General Conference to be held in Fort Worth, Texas. The commission said in its report: "The language and tone convey a moralism, individualism, and exceptionalism that do not reflect how United Methodist communities of faith raise up leaders."