Divided SC Methodists to weigh same-sex marriage, LGBT clergy bans at conference The State
South Carolina Methodists convening in Greenville for their five-day annual conference will consider petitions aimed at settling a rift within the United Methodist Church over whether to allow same-sex marriage and gay clergy. In February, the rule-making body of the Church affirmed and strengthened the denomination’s bans on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and same-sex marriage. Just more than half of the church’s 822 global delegates voted to uphold the bans, ending a special conference in a seemingly irreconcilable split. That decision came about after an alternative plan was narrowl…