The United Methodist Church voted today to repeal its ban on LGBTQ+ clergy, with an overwhelming majority of delegates voting in favor of inclusivity.
The decision took place at the church’s General Conference, where the delegates voted 692-51 to remove the ban, as reported by the Associated Press.
When the vote was announced, folks applauded throughout the convention hall and some LGBTQ+ advocates broke down in tears.
The delegates also voted in favor of a measure that bans penalties for clergy who choose to perform same-sex weddings and also bans penalties for those who refuse to perform them.
There is also expected to be an upcoming vote on whether the church should replace its Social Principles document that says homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching” and defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
The Methodist Church has been moving toward LGBTQ+-inclusivity for a long time now, so much so that in November 2023, 261 Georgia congregations left the church because it was not anti-LGBTQ+ enough.
In 2019, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church announced that churches could leave the denomination through the end of 2023 “for reasons of conscience regarding a change in the requirements and provisions of the Book of Discipline related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals as resolved and adopted by the 2019 General Conference, or the actions or inactions of its annual conference related to these issues which follow.”
According to the United Methodist News Service, 7,286 congregations (more than one in five) across the country have been approved to disaffiliate from the denomination since the 2019 announcement. Over 5000 of those disaffiliations took place in 2023.
Conservatives who have left the denomination have founded the Global Methodist Church, which believes that “human sexuality is a gift of God that is to be affirmed as it is exercised within the legal and spiritual covenant of a loving and monogamous marriage between one man and one woman.”