wfn.org | Emory Defends Personnel Policy

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3180 notes).

Note 3180 by UMNS on Sept. 19, 1996 at 16:11 Eastern (3257 characters).

SEARCH: Emory, university, personnel, homosexual, benefits,
Southeastern Jurisdiction, United Methodist, Chace
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
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CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                      466(10-28-71B){3180}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722          Sept. 19, 1996

Emory personnel policy
condemned, defended

                       by Diane Huie Balay*
             courtesy of The United Methodist Reporter

     United Methodist-related Emory University in Atlanta has
responded to a reprimand approved in mid July by the church's
Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference.
     By a vote of 245-226, with 16 abstentions, the jurisdiction
criticized the university's personnel policy that provides
benefits to domestic partners of employees regardless of gender.
     The Rev. Joe Peabody, superintendent of the church's
Gainesville District in the North Georgia Annual (regional)
Conference, initiated the action, saying that he believed the
university was "headed in the wrong direction."
     According to the jurisdictional conference's Daily Christian
Advocate, Peabody said he did not expect the university to change
its policy because of the letter of reprimand.
     In response to the jurisdictional conference's action, Emory
President William M. Chace wrote to Bishop Robert C. Morgan,
president of the jurisdiction's administrative council and a
trustee of the university. Emory University public relations
personnel provided a copy of the letter to the Reporter.
     In the letter, Chace said that the university provides such
benefits "because we believe it to be consistent both with our
educational mission and with the Book of Discipline of the United
Methodist Church.
     "I would note that our policy on domestic partners does not
assume that such partners are related to each other sexually. The
policy says nothing about 'self-avowed practicing homosexuals' or,
indeed, about sexuality at all. Nor does the policy seek to
address the notion of ordination. Nor can the policy be construed
as granting money to promote homosexuality."
     Chace wrote that the university must not violate its own
policy against discrimination. Further, he recalled the Book of
Discipline's call to "treat homosexual persons justly."
     "Insofar as employee benefits are 'civil liberties' that
should be apportioned equitably, our policy comports with the
Discipline's stand for 'simple justice in protecting ... such
lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships
which involve shared contributions, responsibilities, and
liabilities, and equal protection before the law.'...."
     In conclusion, Chace wrote, "Our decision is not one more
slide farther down the slippery slope to perdition. It is, rather,
part of the difficult pilgrimage that we are on together, through
muddy and fog-shrouded terrain, toward a more just society guided
by such light of grace as God has given us."
                              #  #  #

     * Balay is associate editor of The United Methodist Reporter,
where this article appeared in the Sept. 20, 1966, edition.

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