We turn now to a seismic shift within the United Methodist Church. It recently voted to lift

bans on LGBT Q clergy and same-sex marriages. I spoke to a Methodist pastor about these changes, but first a bit of background.

And the results should now appear on the screen.

It was described as the most consequential meeting of the United Methodist Church in more than half a century.

In late April, hundreds of delegates from around the world gathered in Charlotte, the first such

meeting since 2019.

The affirmative hasn't and the motion is adopted. They voted

overwhelmingly to end the church's bans on same-sex marriage and the

ordination of LGBT Q clergy.

In these decisions that have been made over these last few days as a testimony

that we are claiming that we are a church where everyone belongs. We are a church with open hearts, open minds, and open doors.

In 1972, the Methodists adopted language that the practice of homosexuality was incompatible

with Christian teaching. In 1984 they banned clergy who are self-avalled

practicing homosexuals and in 1996 the church prohibited clergy from officiating same-sex marriages.

We will not leave this Church of Jesus Christ.

After heated discussions at a conference in 2019, delegates voted to uphold those bans.

But in the years that followed, some 7,600 U.S. conservative Methodist congregations located mostly in the South left the church over its lack of

enforcement of the anti-LgBTQ policies. By 2022 the United Methodists had 5.4 million members in the US, less than half their peak in the 1960s.

The recent departures have seen that number drop even further.

For more on the significance of these changes, I spoke recently with the Reverend Valerie

Jackson, the lead pastor at Park Hill United Methodist Church in Denver.

She joined the Methodist Church from the Baptist Church years ago.

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