Pegi remembering 1982

I was there in 1988, not at General Council, but in ministry in the United Church, and I remember … When we made the recommendation to Hamilton Conference in 1982 not to ordain “self-declared homosexuals” (that’s the language we used then) because “the church wasn’t ready”, I hadn’t expected that the church would be ready to overturn that decision in my lifetime. That we had been able to move so quickly (compared to my expectations) so far from where we’d been in 1982 to the 1988 decision was amazing to me and a huge relief. When Hamilton Conference ordained our first out lesbian a decade later, I remember how deeply moved I was. It seemed like absolution for what in 1982 had felt like a necessary but difficult decision, the lesser of two evils. I am proud that This United Church of Ours has inclusivity as a value, even though we stumble along the way.

Pegi Ridout

Hamilton

January 2018

(Shared with permission of Pegi.)