The United Methodist Church at its convention in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday voted against changing long-contested language in its book of laws and doctrines that calls homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent against the change to the church’s Book of Discipline. The delegates also defeated by a similar margin a compromise proposed by gay rights advocates, which said that Methodists could acknowledge their differences on homosexuality while still living together as a church.
In other historically mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, liberals have prevailed so far in the battles over homosexuality. The Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have all voted in recent years to end their outright prohibitions on openly gay clergy members. But in the United Methodist Church, theological conservatives have held sway in the 40 years that the church has been debating the issue. Read more
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