An Open Letter to the United Methodist Church: Guidelines for Ethical Treatment of Gay Employees

Because societies around the world are only now beginning to recognize the claims of gay** human beings to full human dignity, the churches have not yet faced this social development honestly and carefully. Growing up in the American South during the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, I became crucially aware that churches often bring up the rear in social movements to extend civil rights to marginalized groups. My recognition that my childhood church was responding hesitantly and often negatively to the important social development of desegregation led me to leave that church in the 1960s and to join one that seemed more keenly aware of racial justice.

I am writing this open letter to all the churches, since all churches today are forced by growing social awareness that gay people are fully human to struggle with the issue of recognizing the human dignity of gay persons and granting full human rights to gay persons. I am, however, writing out of a particular context: I am referencing my experience and that of my partner Steve as gay theologians who have spent much of our teaching and administrative career working in church-affiliated colleges and universities.

As my profile statement on this blog indicates, our history working in church-based institutions has been persistently interrupted by prejudice. Even when we tried to walk the fine line our own church (the Catholic church) requires gay employees to walk in its institutions—the line of wink-nudge, in which one never discloses one’s sexual orientation while that orientation is an open secret to one’s co-workers—we found ourselves susceptible to unjust and abusive treatment premised on our sexual orientation and shared life.

To be specific: we found ourselves demoted, denied tenure when colleagues and students voted unanimously for us to be tenured, hired at salaries much lower than those given to new hires with fewer credentials, refused written copies of glowing oral evaluations of our work, terminated on spurious grounds of financial exigency. We found ourselves lied to and treated as objects rather than persons.

These experiences convinced us that it was far better to be open and honest about our longstanding relationship, since we experienced discrimination even when we toed the line, so we began to live as an openly gay couple in our professional lives. We began to realize that we have a responsibility to give witness, by living honesty and openly within church institutions as a gay couple who claim our personhood and life together as a gift from God—indeed, as part of our calling as theologians. As this turning point occurred in our vocational lives, our work history comprised two periods of administrative work in United Methodist institutions where, we were told, our being openly gay and a couple would not cause us to experience prejudice.

The last of these experiences turned out, unfortunately, to be almost an exact replica of our experience within Catholic institutions: once again,

In treating gay human beings this way, church-based institutions undercut their most fundamental claims to be responsible ethical agents. They undercut their claims to be about healing of social ills. They undermine their social justice proclamations. Christian institutions that still treat gay human beings with such gross injustice forfeit the right to tell a fractured world that they are offering the healing love of Christ to that world—and, in particular, to its most wounded members.

The following observations draw on our experiences as gay theologians at several church-based institutions of higher learning, but, in particular, on our most recent experiences at a United Methodist university

These observations address an American church context, therefore, and they address quite specifically the behavior of United Methodist institutions in the United States.

I would argue, however, that the ethical reflections I am offering in this open letter to United Methodist church leaders have pertinence for other churches and their institutions. The problem of abusive treatment of gay employees at this transition point in society’s ethical awareness of gay issues is hardly confined to Methodists. It exists in church institutions everywhere, and may, in fact, grow more intractable as ugly political currents turn gay human beings into political footballs.

These problems can be effectively addressed only through open, honest discourse. Churches that try to silence those who seek to foster discussion of these issues—churches that use ugly legal threats to try to thwart first-amendment rights to free speech—do a profound disservice to the Christian community. The problem of injustice to gay employees in Christian institutions will be resolved only by open, honest dialogue about these issues, and that dialogue must include those most affected by the injustice of the churches towards gay human beings—gay people themselves. It is deeply unjust for the United Methodist church to invite "ex-gays" to its annual conferences, but to exclude openly gay members who also wish to address the assembly. To talk about people in the absence of those being discussed, when fundamental decisions are being made about their rights, is to reduce those persons to the level of objects.

In what follows, I want to offer some fundamental principles for churches that truly want to make headway in addressing the claims of gay people to human dignity and human rights. My first fundamental principle is as follows:

1. United Methodist institutions that claim to deplore discrimination against gay employees MUST have non-discrimination policies enshrined in the documents that constitute the institution’s official statements of policy.
   

The Social Principles of the United Methodist church state explicitly,

Certain basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons. We are committed to supporting those rights and liberties for homosexual persons.

We see a clear issue of simple justice in protecting their rightful claims where they have shared material resources, pensions, guardian relationships, mutual powers of attorney, and other such lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships that involve shared contributions, responsibilities, and liabilities, and equal protection before the law.

Moreover, we support efforts to stop violence and other forms of coercion against gays and lesbians.

The preceding claim is meaningless unless United Methodist institutions adopt clear, forthright statements of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. Unfortunately, in the case of the last UMC institution at which Steve and I worked, the university catalogue—which is the official arbiter of university policies—contains no such statement.

We accepted verbal promises

We were, unfortunately, deceived in thinking that these promises afforded us safety against overt discrimination, when it became convenient for our supervisor



particularly hurtful, since I had previously considered both friends. Because they are African American and I always considered myself an invited guest in African-American institutions, I would not have dreamed of treating them in such a demeaning way. In fact, earlier in the year, when I found my salary was augmented by $20,000 from a state grant, I had split the augmentation in half and given half to the associate—though it was money Steve and I very much needed as we tried to recoup our expenses in moving to

a move for which the university had not paid.

2. Official policy statements forbidding discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation are particularly needed in areas in which local laws afford NO legal protection to gay employees, and permit at-will firing without any stated reason on the part of the employer.

During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, an argument was often advanced by Southern whites (and supported by most of our churches) that, in upholding segregation, we were only doing what the law mandated and permitted. Civil rights leaders such as Dr. King noted that what is legally permissible is not always what is ethically right.

In permitting themselves to do what is legally permissible while ethically wrong, United Methodist institutions bring shame on themselves and suggest that their commitment to their Social Principles is merely verbal—that these Principles have no bearing on how UMC institutions actually operate.

The UMC Social Principles state,

We reject the use of violence by either party during collective bargaining or any labor/management disagreement.

We support social measures that ensure the physical and mental safety of workers, that provide for the equitable division of products and services, and that encourage an increasing freedom in the way individuals may use their leisure time.

We believe that persons come before profits. We deplore the selfish spirit that often pervades our economic life. We support policies that encourage the sharing of ideas in the workplace, cooperative and collective work arrangements. We support rights of workers to refuse to work in situations that endanger health and/or life without jeopardy to their jobs.

Right-to-work laws do not even come close to meeting the ethical mark set by these statements from the Social Principles. When the employer is legally permitted to terminate an employee at will, without even doing an evaluation of that employee’s work, in what sense does the workplace protect the “physical and mental safety of workers”? In such an institution, what right do workers have to “refuse to work in situations that endanger health and/or live without jeopardy to their jobs”?

If those workers are part of an oppressed minority that does not have any legal protection under the law, but which is nonetheless recognized by UMC teaching as deserving of human dignity, how can that minority even make the discrimination it may experience in Methodist institutions known, if the employer has the unilateral right to terminate employment at any time, without even providing a reason for the termination?

Such questions became frighteningly real for us last summer, when our supervisor informed Steve

When he asked if

had informed the police or FBI of these threats,

stated that she had not done so. Nor did she offer him any substantial protection from violence—this in a state in which violence against gay people has reached almost epidemic levels.

3. When United Methodist institutions hire openly gay employees with the full acknowledgment and approval of the governing board of the institution, and when those employees are summarily dismissed without even having received an evaluation of their work, the governing board has an exceedingly strong responsibility to investigate what has happened in the dismissal.

Not to investigate when the employee in question is gay, and the community affords no legal protection to a gay person, and is also a right-to-work community, strongly undercuts the UMC claim to support the human rights of gay persons and “the simple justice in protecting their rightful claims” in the economic arena. Since the governing boards of most United Methodist institutions are comprised not only of a large percentage of United Methodists, but also of UMC ministers and bishops, there is an even stronger responsibility on the part of those governing boards to see that treatment of employees—especially employees belonging to an oppressed minority without legal protection—does not undercut core Methodist ethical principles.

When an openly gay employee in a Methodist institution where the local community affords no legal protection is suddenly dismissed for specious reasons (e.g., “failure to work with this administration”) and in the absence of any evaluation, the governing board has an exceptionally strong responsibility to interview the employee himself or herself, if the board wishes to adhere to UMC Social Principles. This is all the more the case when that employee played a significant role in the leadership team of the institution, and when there is strong reason to believe his or her work was positively received by the majority of those working in the institution.

When the employee has been demoted and then terminated without even having had his or her work evaluated, how else can the governing board assure that the information provided to the board about the employee’s work is accurate and not slanderous? Written evaluations of an employee’s work should be a mandatory requirement in any UMC institution that wishes to claim adherence to the Social Principles.

Without such evaluations (particularly when one has worked over a year and then been summarily terminated for a specious reason), how can a worker respond to or provide proof to counter unfounded misrepresentations of his/her job performance by the supervisor? Most accrediting bodies of professional organizations—and all accrediting bodies of institutions of higher learning—require that such a written evaluation process, which provides the opportunity for employee response, be in place.

It may be possible that workers summarily dismissed on specious grounds can even provide documents to governing boards which demonstrate clearly that they have been slandered—that information provided to the governing board regarding the employee’s job performance is incorrect. It may be possible that those documents show that the supervisor has placed in writing statements that are explicitly homophobic, and which demonstrate discrimination in the employee's firing.

It would seem that the ethical obligation of the governing board to investigate the sudden termination of openly gay employees in UMC institutions grows even stronger when 1) the employees are nearing retirement age, 2) have incurred strong financial burdens by accepting a position at a UMC institution, on the basis of promises that are then not honored, 3) have a history of hard, effective work in and sacrificial service to UMC institutions, 4) enjoy the esteem of colleagues in many places, 5) give to the institution at a level much higher than that of any other colleagues on the leadership team, and 6) are unlikely, given their age and the inexplicable circumstances of their sudden termination (as well as the threat of legal action if they speak forthrightly about what has happened to them), to find it easy to obtain further employment.

It also seems that the ethical obligation of the governing board to investigate such a sudden termination of openly gay leaders becomes stronger in a place such as

where these unfortunately events transpired. Recent developments in

indicate that this state strongly needs guidance and healing for homophobic violence. United Methodist institutions ought to be leading the charge with guidance and healing. The institution at which we worked prides itself on inculcating civic responsibility in students. It looks to a founder who urged universities to involve students in the social problems of their own community.

In trying to silence and bully openly gay leaders, in then dismissing them under humiliating circumstances, what message does this United Methodist institution give its local community and its students regarding its commitment to oppose homophobic violence?



This is shoddy treatment of people who have given much to UMC institutions for some years, and who made significant sacrifices to come to this particular UMC institution at the invitation of its president to assist her in leading the institution. It is disgraceful treatment from any ethical standpoint. It is underhanded and dirty treatment on the part of people claiming to be ethical agents and representatives of United Methodist values.

4. United Methodist institutions should not hire openly gay employees who are couples if the institution is intent on treating the gay couple differently from other married couples in the same institution.

Within several weeks of our arrival at our last place of employment—where we had been assured we would be welcome as a gay couple, after board discussion of this issue—we were informed by our supervisor that

It is ethically insupportable to make distinctions between openly gay employees as welcome in UMC institutions, and openly gay couples as unwelcome in UMC institutions. To make such a distinction is blatantly discriminatory. Openly gay couples present no challenges to an institution that are unique to gay couples, no challenges that are not present as well when an institution hires a heterosexual couple—other than the challenges gay couples present when they must necessarily negotiate currents of discrimination that are there because they are gay, not because they are a couple.

The underlying reason church-based institutions that claim to welcome gay employees seek to prohibit gay couples is the fear of visibility on the part of gay employees when they are a couple. Asking gay employees to be closeted—not to be seen together or to support each other in the same way a married couple would do—is inherently homophobic and discriminatory. Such discrimination undercuts the claim of a United Methodist institution to welcome gay employees.

Once again, when members of a gay couple are treated with conspicuous disrespect by supervisors who target them specifically as a gay couple, and when they are terminated precipitously on specious grounds in the absence of any written evaluation, whisked away in the company of four security guards with their personal belongings locked into their former office, it is incumbent on a governing board to investigate. It is incumbent on a governing board in a United Methodist institution to investigate what has happened, because such treatment seems on the face of it grossly to undercut core principles of the UMC Social Principles. It is incumbent on the governing board to ask about the reception the gay couple received in the institution in question—that is, if the institution really does want to be an institution that lives up to the Methodist claim of having an open mind, open heart, and open door.

Perhaps if governing boards asked for the testimony of gay couples who have experienced such treatment, they would hear stories that would trouble their consciences greatly—for instance, they might hear what it feels like to be invited by a faculty friend to her Methodist church one Sunday, to kneel at the communion rail of that church with one’s supervisor, and the very next day, to have that supervisor tell you that she wants you gone from the campus, in the company of a retired UMC seminary dean who is a minister, and who will not likely experience the anguish of being without income and health coverage in his late middle age.

The governing board that takes seriously the stated concern of the United Methodist church not to harm, not to discriminate, might hear, if it inquires, what it feels like to listen to the church proclaim its message of open hearts, open minds, and open doors, and then to be terminated in a very humiliating way, three days after kneeling at the communion rail with the supervisor who crafts this bullying termination event.

Should those of us who are gay really believe that the United Methodist church is sincere about its claim to have an open heart, open mind, and open door, when its institutional representatives can behave in this way, and no one raises his or her voice in protest? After my experience at the communion rail of a UMC church on 3 June last year, followed by the outrageous 6 June termination, I have begun to understand a bit what Richard Allen must have felt when he and other African American Methodists were asked to wait for communion until white church members had preceded them at the communion rail . Like Richard Allen, I am now inclined simply to walk away, shaking my head at a church that can proclaim a gospel of love and inclusivity, and then behave with such savagery. What does communion mean to people who can kneel and receive communion with you one day, and then treat you like a despised, demeaned object, and not a human being, the next?

** In this document, I am using the word “gay” inclusively to refer to gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees. Churches should also extend the same moral recognition to transgendered persons, it goes without saying.