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We wish, as retired members of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, to express our dismay regarding rulings recently announced by our Judicial Council.

A superbly qualified and supremely devoted Christian woman has been de-frocked, told that she may no longer serve as an ordained pastor because God made the mistake of sending her into the world as a lesbian. And a pastor has been given carte blanche to exclude a man from United Methodist membership on the basis of his justifiable unwillingness to deny his personhood, and to brand his sexual orientation as sinful.

Taken together, these decisions effectively exclude homosexual men and women from both leadership and membership among us. What normal human characteristic may next be branded as sinful?

Rulings of this sort define membership in The United Methodist Church as a privilege to be offered contingent upon the arbitrary prejudices of any local pastor. Have we lost our minds? Have we lost our Christian moral compass? Most importantly, have we lost our faith in one who came among us to welcome all people to the heavenly banquet?

Decisions like these must be reversed by the only avenues available: a revision by the General Conference of all disciplinary language supporting these unfortunate outcomes; or, failing that, massive and widespread ecclesiastical disobedience by bishops, pastors and supporting lay members. The United Methodist Church simply cannot abide such an assault upon the Gospel.

Then let the Church turn its attention and its energies to resolving the sorts of problems Jesus and the prophets were really concerned with: problems of poverty, of war and peace, of justice and social ostracism, of health. And let us begin either to practice what we preach, 'Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.' or be honest enough to discard a slogan that simply does not describe us.

Lon B. Chesnutt, Arthur Dan Gleckler, Andrew Leigh Gunn, Clifford L. Harrison, William A. Holmes, Harry C. Kiely, Chester W. Kirk, James Morgan, R. Bruce Poynter, Thomas E. Price, L. Carroll Yingling, Jr., Ira G. Zepp, Jr.