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As to other related ilssues: * All people who wish to worshilpl in a lSDA congregation in peace, are welcomed to attend. I p[ersonally know of some homosexuals who attend SDA Congregatios but are not members. * Homosexuals who remain celebate are welcomed to be baptized and become mebbers. 8 There are a few ccases where a non-celebate homosexual has been baptized and allowed to become a SDA member. Such is rare and a viiolation of policy.

That's the way it works in my Church as well.

As to the policy related to homosexual SDA Clergy, it is simply this: Homosexuals may be ordained as SDA Clerlgy only as long as they remain celebate. If they do not remain celebate their ordination will be revocked. We do have some who do remain celebate. We have revoked the ordination of some others who did not remain celebate.

The varioius levels of the SDAChruch operte under a Constitution whilch also has w set of Bylaws. The Consstsilltion is seldom changed, bult may be changed. The Bylaws are often changed. In the Unilted States, the SDA Church has registered wlith the governlment, in order tko be covered by the protections of law that apply to religious organilzations. That process has included the ConstilltulIn the United kStates, In the Unlited States, t he authority to authorize the ordination of SDA clegy has generally lbeen given to the Union Conferences by their Constiltution. In short, the Local Conference recommends ordination and the Union Conference aplproves. As an example, my credentials cOme frkom teh Pacific Union kl coknference aftere the Northern kCalifornia conference recommended such. Under the procedure listed above, the General Conference is considered by many, including me, to not have the authority to tell the Union Ckonferences whom they can ordain.

That is not correct Gustave. The General Conference leadership made a request. They recognized that they did not have the authority. Conferences and unions had worked with the request while waiting for the condition to be met to educate our members and then freely ordain women. Sadly, well over a century has past. Some education has been done, but the General Conference went to different topics and this has fallen by the way side. There were a few times that the General Conference brought up the idea of women's ordination but a careful (and official writings) looked at these votes and says that they only resulted decision to not make a decision at that time and to just leave things as they are. The way things "are" is that the conferences and unions have the right to ordain who they wish, but that they may wish to wait for more members to get educated in the fact that the ordination of women is Biblical. They are not bound to the suggestion.

In the western territories people such as Elder Loughborough ordained women. The New York Conference wanted to ordain women and the Atlantic Union approved the ordination of women. The General Conference said that while they were free to ordain the women, they requested that the women get the paperwork without the word "Ordained" until more of our members were ordained that it is Biblical to ordain women. From this history, which part would you say they understood to be only a temporary measure? If they did not want to ordain women they would have simply told Loughborough and the others and the conferences and unions that wanted to ordain women to simply not to, instead of setting up a system where we have always for all practical purposes ordained women only avoiding the word. Ellen White could have taken the paperwork without the word "Ordained" She could have written testimonies to Loughborough, the New York Conference, the Atlantic Union telling them that women's ordination was wrong and to send Daniels and General Conference leaders before him that we simply should not ordain women instead of setting up this way of ordaining women and avoiding the word. While some religions may argue over ordaining women, the issue in the Seventh-day Adventist church has always been whether we should be honest and open that we ordain women, or to ordain them in a round-about way avoiding the word but in fact doing the task? The purpose for hiding what we were doing was, according to Daniels, to allow to educate our members that it is Biblical to ordain women. The church has never decided to make ignorance, that our pioneers wanted to educate away from, to be a rule to be enforced on to the church.

The union conferences were given the ability to choose ordination back in the 1800s. Some, back then, choose to ordain women, however, the General Conference did make a request for a temporary differentiation between male and female ordination. That men get the papers that include the word "Ordination" while women's papers get the same pay, with their husbands getting the same stipend as given to the wives of the ordained men, but that the women's papers omit the word "Ordained." That the women get ordination in the local church, but are allowed the same responsibilities as ordained pastors (although there tended to be an exception for certain administrative offices in the hagiarchy of the church). In other words, since the 1800s, our church has been ordaining women, but in a round about way. According to General Conference President A. G. Daniels (who came into office long after this practice was started) this round-about ordination was only to be temporary so that our members can become educated, but agreed that the unions had the right to ordain who they wish. Ellen White did NOT take this round about ordination option, but took the same papers as the men that included the word "Ordained." (Now, there is one copy, out of several copies over the years) where someone crossed out the word "Ordained." Now, when Mrs. White crossed out something, she would place her initials over the cross out. However, this cross out does not contain her initials. Critics of women's ordination argue that Mrs. White needed the paper with the word "Ordination" to get paid. However, other women who carried the papers that did not include the word "Ordained" got paid, got the same pay as the men who carried papers that carried the word "Ordained." Mrs. White could have carried the papers that did not use the word "Ordained" and still have gotten the same pay, so this argument does not fit the facts. The votes taken in the General Conference sessions has never changed this policy, but has been described as "kicking the can" further down the road while maintaining the same round-about ordaining women with paperwork that does not include the word "ordained." What these "rebellious" conferences are doing is deciding to just be open and above board about the language of the paperwork, taking advantage of the powers the church gave them in the 1800s, and choosing to no longer fulfill a temporary REQUEST by the General Conference leadership. Why do so many of our members show a neurotic need to prove that we are good Baptists, and if we are not going to ordain women, then why didn't our leadership prevent the ordination of women from the start? Why did our pioneers and leadership set up a way of ordaining women without using the word "Ordained" which they said was only to be temporary?

Because ww totally still have smallpox and polio and measles, mumps and rubella running wild and killing millions. Oh, wait...

2 words for those who think the flu shot works: Placebo Effect.