“The United Methodist Church’s General Conference meets every four years. In its most recent meeting in 2008, delegates voted to maintain the church’s policy prohibiting the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of partnered homosexuals…”

“We do not know how many, if any, marriages or ‘holy unions’ of same-sex couples will be performed by UM clergy in the near future,” reads a letter, currently signed by more than 400 pastors, to the Council of Bishops. “But we do know the destructive effects that will result in our local churches and throughout the denomination if such services are performed by UM pastors.”

The Presbyterian and Episcopal denominations have seen several larger, growing, conservative congregations seeking to distance themselves from national hierarchies that have forced recognition of homosexual clergy and marriage onto their denominations. Large churches in Virginia, Texas and California have taken measures to pull out of the U.S. Episcopal denomination. The Presbyterians are seeing a new, conservative denomination split away after national leadership voted to drop longstanding prohibitions on homosexuality.

Watching what has happened to those denominations, the concerned Methodist clergy are referring to a pledge that some 900 ministers have endorsed in support of same-sex civil unions. By signing the pledge, they agreed to defy the denomination’s ban on blessing same-sex unions.

“The United Methodist Church holds the position that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and that homosexual unions ‘shall not be conducted by our ministers’ or in UMC churches,” reports Lillian Kwon in the Christian Post. “While the denomination has debated the issue of homosexuality for decades, the growing number of clergy willing to disobey church laws and marry gay and lesbian couples has many in the church concerned.

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