August 18, 2007

Emily Eastwood on Churchwide Assembly 2007

As most excellent scribe and colorful reporter Phil Soucy foretold at the end of last week, I am writing in brief to give you the "what does this mean for us" version of what happened in Chicago. A more complete letter will go out to all our members and RIC congregations next week. The Concord will also have extensive reporting on the ELCA Churchwide Assembly (CWA). It should be delivered to you in September complete with color photos which are already available on the website.

First, I need to thank all the volunteers, voting members, LGBT ministers who introduced themselves to the ELCA, knitters, planning team, and our staff (who impressed everyone including the staff of the ELCA, the press, and even those who would oppose full inclusion). We did our job. We engaged the ELCA at all levels with grace, love, courage and clarity. Our tenacious witness and pervasive presence throughout laid the firm foundation for a majority of voting members to look within to test what was "good to the Holy Spirit and to them."

Before the Schmeling trial and decision our legislative strategy for CWA07 was based on moving the ELCA towards the first section of the original 2005 recommendation of the Sexuality Task Force to refrain from discipline. The courage of Bradley and St John's and the decision of the Discipline Hearing Committee which called for policy change shifted our focus to the very real possibility of policy change this year.

22 Synods passed motions requesting policy change. The Memorials Committee, however, in an attempt to preempt such action voted to refer the Goodsoil memorials to the Sexuality Task Force as information. With their motion to refer, our work got a whole lot harder. Overcoming the recommendations of the Memorials Committee takes a majority and an act of God. The sole argument against policy change was that such change should be predicated by a Social Statement on Sexuality which is due in 2009.

Remember that in Orlando the Goodsoil motion for policy change received only 33% of the vote. While we did not win the day in Chicago, the Goodsoil memorial on policy change in a direct challenge of the Memorial Committees motion to refer got an amazing 45% of the vote. That's a 12% increase. We only need to reach an additional 6% to eliminate the discriminatory policy in Minneapolis 2009.

After the vote on policy change was defeated, I reminded our rainbow scarf clad volunteers that we were not done yet. The amendment to strengthen the referral motion to include a report and recommendation on policy change from the task force in 2009 passed easily. A local option motion which bore a striking resemblance to the exception policy defeated in Orlando also failed and referral of the Goodsoil memorial on policy change went to the Task Force as information with instruction for 2009.

As you know the Memorials Committee had also recommended that Goodsoil Memorials 2 and 3, refrain from and use restraint in discipline, be referred as information, this time to the conference of bishops, We made our case in a few short speeches led off by Bishop Landahl of Metro Chicago Synod.

Confronted with the roster of 82 ministers, and, by inference, the bishops who have protected them and/or their congregations, the church suddenly "came out of the closet" about its LGBT clergy. With the specter of dozens of Bradley's, costly trials, a series of black eyes for the denomination in the press, the church put on the disciplinary brakes in the only way it could short of changing the policy. The CWA prayed, urged and encouraged bishops, including the presiding bishop to refrain from or use restraint in the application of discipline for LGBT ministers in same-gender relationships.

For the first time in my 20 years of working for full inclusion, we actually defeated the recommendation of the Memorials Committee. We won. The dam of discrimination cracked as the church looked itself in the face and said it is no longer "mete, right, and salutary" that we should remove our LGBT ministers simply for having a family.

So, where are we now? The bishops will meet in the Fall to hash out what this all means for them. Meanwhile our path is clear. We must now put as much water through the crack in the dam as possible between now and churchwide assembly 2009. We must train additional leaders, elect allied voting members, increase the number of RIC congregations, encourage additional LGBT ministers to introduce themselves to the ELCA. We must gather the largest group of allied Lutherans to date at Hearts on Fire in San Francisco, July 3-6, 2008. We must organize people and money to continue to create the change we seek. Our strategies are working. It is wonderful to have a destination, a clear path, and a map to get there. We are on our way. With God's help, justice will prevail. Let the people say Amen, let it be so.

Emily Eastwood, Executive Director, LC/NA