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LGBTQ-friendly votes signal progressive shift for Methodists

FILE - A gay pride rainbow flag flies with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kan., on Friday, April 19, 2019. The United Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming during U.S. regional meetings in November 2022, that included the election of its second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth, a United Methodist elder in the California-Pacific Conference, embraces his husband, Christopher Hucks-Ortiz, after his election was announced on Nov. 4, 2022, at Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. Bridgeforth, who will lead churches in the Greater Northwest Area, said he has always worked across ideological lines in his work in church administration and would continue to do so. (Patrick Scriven/United Methodist News via AP) Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth addresses the delegates, guests and his new episcopal colleagues, shortly after his election on Nov. 4, 2022, at Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. At left is his husband, Christopher Hucks-Ortiz. Bridgeforth is the first openly gay African-American man to be elected bishop. The vote comes six years after the Western Jurisdiction elected the denomination's first openly lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveto of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area. (Patrick Scriven/United Methodist News via AP)