ORLANDO, Fla. — One of the largest churches in the world is maintaining its opposition to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy, a vote decided during a special session Tuesday.
- Methodist church officials decide how to handle LGBTQ issues
- Vote took place during United Methodist Church conference
- Church asked if LGBTQ bans should be up to regional bodies
More than half of delegates at an international conference for the United Methodist Church supported a plan to maintain a ban on same-sex weddings and the ordination of gay clergy.
Officially, the Methodist church bans same-sex weddings and the ordination of LGBT clergy. Despite these bans, acts of defiance have increased in recent years.
Eight-hundred delegates from all over the world in St. Louis this week for an international conference decided the church should keep the LGBTQ bans, rather than leave those decisions up to regional bodies to decide.
"This gathering is many different cultures, many different nations, even many different understandings of sociology, and psychology, and culture," the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church's Bishop Ken Carter said in a YouTube video. "We don’t have common cultural languages or sociological languages. The only language we have in common is the language of scripture."
In Orlando, there have been efforts to welcome and support LGBTQ members, especially after the 2016 attack at Pulse nightclub.
A vote on Monday paved the way for a stricter ban on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy to move forward.
According to Bishop Ken Carter with the Florida Conference of the church, their decision to maintain the LGBTQ ban will for to a Judicial Council for review.
There are 7 million Methodists in the U.S., and experts warn such a decision could break up America’s second largest Protestant denomination.
