Oct 03, 2008  |  By: ROBERT A. BERNSTEIN  | COMMENTS     

WHEN BISHOPS ARE embarrassed about enforcing their denomination’s anti-gay rules, and ministers perform same-sex unions in secret, the handwriting is on the church wall. So suggests the senior minister of a high-profile Washington United Methodist Church.

The days of mainstream religious opposition to gay marriage would seem to be numbered, in the same way that clerical opposition to racial integration dissolved four decades ago.

I’m hardly the first to recognize the similarities between gay and racial discrimination. But one critical parallel goes largely unmentioned — namely, the role of the clergy in first impeding but ultimately taking a lead in the movement for equality.

In the 1960s, thousands of pastors, primarily as a matter of perceived job security, ignored their personal beliefs and failed to speak out against racial discrimination, which Martin Luther King, Jr. denounced as “the appalling silence of the good.” Ultimately, however, courageous, outspoken clergy were instrumental in mainstream religion’s general acknowledgment of the spiritual basis for integration and support for civil rights laws.

So today, primarily for the same reasons of job security, legions of ministers fear to speak publicly of their private personal support for gay marriage. But the turnabout, at least among non-fundamentalist faiths, is on its way.

The current turmoil over gay marriage within the Methodist denomination is a revealing example of both the “silence of the good” and the inevitability of ultimate widespread clerical acceptance.
Officially, the denomination’s Book of Discipline ordains that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” 

BUT WHILE THE church’s harsh stance has so far withstood regular attacks at its general conferences, the margin has narrowed each year. Protest services have been held around the country, including one in Sacramento attended by more than 1,100, including some 100 ministers.

So it’s not overly surprising that Rev. Dean Snyder, first minister of D.C.’s Foundry United Methodist Church, foresees the ban’s fall within the next four years.

Foundry is a large, high-profile church within the denomination, traditionally attended by presidents and other national figures, and Rev. Snyder is among the hundreds of Methodist pastors openly supportive of same-sex unions. “I think it’s just tragic,” he says, “that the church ends up being a follower on this issue rather than a prophetic leader.” He confirms that many of his local Methodist colleagues agree with him, including some who are performing the unions clandestinely, though “I wouldn’t ‘out’ any of them.”

FOUNDRY RECENTLY DREW national attention, and harsh criticism from some national Christian and Methodist organizations, when its congregation supported Rev. Snyder’s proposal to “recognize and honor” committed gay relationships.

Ironically, however, Rev. Snyder is actually apologetic about the church’s stance. That’s because the move doesn’t allow the ceremony to be conducted on Foundry premises or by Rev. Snyder himself. Instead, it authorizes it to be conducted elsewhere and by someone else. Only then does it permit Rev. Snyder to conduct a worship service at Foundry honoring the committed relationship.

The procedure presumably skirts the Book of Discipline ban because the actual commitment ceremony isn’t performed by a Methodist minister or on Methodist premises.

Rev. Snyder implies that he personally would have favored approval of on-site ceremonies performed by Foundry clergy. “We approved the [off-site] procedure with apologies,” he said. “But it was what we were able to reach consensus on at this point in our history.”   

He feels that Methodist bishops are increasingly “embarrassed” by the formalized discrimination. And he cites the parallel to the end of racial segregation in the denomination.

“Our bishops have enormous power to act behind the scenes and to make a difference. That’s how segregation ended in the United Methodist Church — it ended when the bishops became publicly embarrassed at the scandal of segregation within the denomination. And they maneuvered things in such a way as to get it ended.

“So my hope is that they will exercise the same sort of leadership now.”