100 ATTEND BISHOP'S LIFESTREAM
Gay Wedding, Pastor Ban
Divides Local Methodists
By LIBBY CUDMORE • HOMETOWN ONEONTA & The Freeman’s Journal
In 1996, when Rev. Marti Swords-Horrell threw a 10th anniversary party for husband Dana, a guest said something that changed her life forever.
“Kirk was our funeral director, a good Christian and gay, but it wasn’t safe for him to be out,” she recounted. “He came up to me and said congratulations, but he also said that he and his partner had been together longer than we had, but would never get a party like this. It really opened my eyes.”
The pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Oneonta since June, Swords-Horrell has welcomed the LGBTQ community, handing out water at the Gay Pride parade and hosted a play about a gay teen when a local school wouldn’t.
But in February, 53 percent of delegates at a United Methodist Church special conference in St. Louis, Mo., voted for a “Traditional” plan, one of three options. U.S. delegates would have supported a “One Church” plan, but delegates from more conservative congregations in Asia and Africa didn’t.
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