The Vote

May 25th 2025

Rev. Roberta Howey

John 14: 23-29

“The Vote”

Our gospel reading today takes place before Jesus is killed. He is telling his disciples, yet again, that he is going to leave them. But that they won’t be alone, they will have God, and the Holy Spirit, moving through them. It will be up to the humans to discern what the Creator is telling them to do, but as long as they are discerning from a place of love and not fear, they will be alright.

But we as humans, well, we are fallible. I am no better than anyone else, we are prone to fear. To think of the worst case scenarios when those sometimes don’t even make sense and to try to achieve stability. We don’t like change, we don’t like taking risks, on a societal level. Whenever big things happen, we work very hard to restabilize. Being led by fear is how we keep from being eaten in the wild, but discerning God’s presence isn’t a fear-based practice. It is led by love, and by taking a risk or two. 

The United Church took a massive risk in being formed in 1925. It made more risks when it added other church denominations, ordained women, and encouraged new curriculums that fostered critical thinking. It was one of the first and only denominations to take a pro-choice stance on contraceptives and abortion. So if there was any church that could take on the potential of ordaining gay and lesbian ministers, it would be the UCC.

Ordaining women and ordaining queer folk were two different challenges. The biggest was that until incredibly recently, homosexuality was illegal in Canada. While ordaining women was a theological challenge, there were not huge social, psychological, legal, and religious conversations around whether they exist, or should exist, at all. Only in 1969 was it decriminalized, though if you were “public” with your partner you could still be arrested. It wasn’t until 1987 that “gross indecency” laws were repealed. These were primarily aimed at arresting gay men- lesbians were dealt with by the family, where they were often forced into treatments and facilities to be cured, if they weren’t disowned or simply ignored.

The UCC was and is filled with Canadians, like you and me, who had their own views on gay and lesbian people. Many knew of a friend of a friend or the “perpetual bachelor/spinster” in their family, but many more only knew of publicly out queer people through scandals in the news, like the Toronto bathhouse raids, or it being the 80’s what we knew from the AIDS epidemic sweeping through North America and Africa. Back in 1960 the church released their first papers on the subject “Towards a Christian Understanding of Sex, Love, and Marriage”, which said divorce was okay in extreme circumstances and homosexuality was never acceptable. By 1976 the UCC published a different stance- they supported repealing the homosexuality laws to allow gay and lesbian people to exist without criminal consequences: still not acceptable in the church, but not something someone should go to jail for. 

By 1980 Affirm was established, to begin conversations around ordaining gay and lesbian ministers, and allowing openly gay and lesbian lay people to be members of the church. These conversations began in houses, and church basements, almost in secret, at the risk of being kicked out. Slowly, more people joined. Eventually it made its way to congregational and presbytery discussions. By the mid-80’s, it was clear that there needed to be a national conversation and vote on the issue. 

Let’s be clear here; at no point did anyone think this would pass. At the time of the vote, only 28% of people polled in the UCC thought ordaining a gay minister would be a good idea. Six months before the 33rd General Council in 1988, the incredibly boringly-named Sessional Committee 8 convened. 24 people who came together to discuss and vote on the issue, all voted in favour. This included many who initially voted no. 6 fateful days of discussion and discernment. 

On the second morning they went into the classroom where they stored their materials. The committee saw, written on the blackboard, homophobic slurs scrawled across the wall. The chair of the session said to leave the board untouched. Everyone who walked into that room had to see what was at stake. To vote for gay inclusion, or to side with the person writing hate speech in secret. Discern with love, or discern with fear. The conversations started to change. People began to open up and pray, hard, and listen harder, to where both sides were coming from. The committee saw as slowly, everyone, including all who went in to defend tradition and stability, were willing to take a risk to follow love, not fear. 

At the General Council every single committee member sat up on the stage so the entire voting body could see them. They knew these folks, they were friends and colleagues. They were fellow siblings in Christ. Slowly stories came forward, people wanting to be ordained but could not, people threatened with violence for being an ally, people who came out for the first time just for that vote. And at 2:1, the general council of 1988 voted that all were created in God’s image, and all irrespective of gender or sexuality could seek ordination in the United Church of Canada.

This is not where the story ends. Shortly after it was like the church woke up, washed its face in the mirror, and said “Oh my god, what did we do?” The backlash was strong, with thousands leaving the church, including 25 congregations dissolving. The following GC, 50 petitions were brought forth to rescind the vote. And the first openly gay minister was not ordained until 1992. Individual congregations had to go through the affirming process themselves, and many that voted “no” for inclusion were now stuck with what to do. The Washington Post declared this would be the death knell of the church. We are human after all, and prone to fear. 

Fast forward to 2003, and my own congregation was given the opportunity to have a same-sex wedding in our church. They voted no- our minister could do the wedding, but not in our sanctuary. That congregation closed in 2017. Their marriage is still going strong. And despite the numbers decreasing and our denomination lamenting the population of the 1960s, we also have become one of the beacons for queer Christians looking for healing. We have been involved in activism worldwide including for queer rights, same-sex marriage, banning conversion therapy, and countless other areas. We listened to love, we listened to the Spirit. 

Risk after risk after risk. And at each point, it would not be hard to lean into the fear and turn this whole thing around. Fear is so easy to spread, love is harder. “Those who love me will keep my word”, Jesus tells his followers. Those who do not love him, those who embrace the fear and anger and hatred, will only foster more fear and anger and hatred. But to love, fully and unconditionally, means we take risks, and lean into what the Spirit is calling us to do. Does this mean in 50 years we will still be here? Who knows! But it means that here and now we know that we are loved, loving others, and sharing God’s love with creation. Made in God’s image, and what a beautiful image that is.