Anonymous

ANONYMOUS

I am an ordained elder in the UMC, and I am gay.  Since my ordination I served my denomination faithfully as a local church pastor, in district and annual conference work, and for many years as a staff member at the denominational level.  I was widely respected across the church.  Yet all that time I was gay, and I am still gay.  But now in retirement -- because of my hurt, anger and disillusionment at the UMC's negative stance toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people -- I have severed my active ties with United Methodism.  I no longer worship in my local church.  I no longer serve on local church, district, and annual conference committees and councils.  I no longer have contact with many people who were important in my life.  And - to add insult to injury - I have to write this statement anonymously.

Now I have found my church home in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches where I function as a lay person in a local MCC congregation.  I am accepted and loved for who I really am and have always been.  I have been in a committed relationship with a same-gender partner for almost sixteen years, and we worship there together.  I sing the same hymns and hear the same Scriptures read that have nurtured me all my life.  I hear good sermons preached weekly.  I eat the bread and drink the juice in the same sacrament of Holy Communion.  I worship the same Christ I always have.  I receive love from the same God has always loved me.  But I do it in a safe place where I am fully accepted and loved completely, just as I am.

My stole depicts my journey from the UMC through a time of rebirth and resurrection -- symbolized by the butterflies - to the MCC church, a church that welcomes everyone regardless of their sexual orientation, a church that does not stand in the way of my receiving God's love completely.  My version of the UM logo's Pentecost flame is the rainbow, a symbol of diversity!

A gay ordained United Methodist elder
Southeastern U.S.

This anonymous pastor has felt the weight of the church's discrimination for decades; even now he isn't free to identify himself.  Nevertheless, he has found a certain sense of freedom and release in the Metropolitan Community Church, a denomination in which he and his partner are welcome.

This stole was given to us in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH.  In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles”.  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006