Bethesda Friends Meeting Minute on BYM's Relationship to Friends United Meeting (FUM)

10 May 2008

After long prayerful consideration, we arrived at the following sense of the Meeting:

First, since 2004 Bethesda Friends Meeting has been on record expressing its very deep concern about the discriminatory personnel policy of Friends United Meeting. We continue to oppose this policy as inconsistent with what we understand to be one of the fundamental testimonies of Friends. Because this policy is not consistent with the kind of community we aspire to be, Bethesda Friends Meeting reluctantly concludes that we should disassociate ourselves from FUM.

Second, for these reasons, in response to the request from Baltimore Yearly Meeting, we also recommend that the Yearly Meeting terminate its membership in FUM.

Third, at the same time, we both recognize and value our shared Quaker heritage with FUM, and hope that we may continue to maintain our connections with them, even as we labor in love with them over this issue, which we all believe goes to the core of our common identity as a Quaker community. Therefore, even as we can no longer support FUM as a member organization, we earnestly seek to sustain and broaden our own Meeting’s dialogue with FUM and its constituent Meetings, Friends and attenders on this issue, and urge BYM to continue its efforts in this direction. The existing intervisitation program is one opportunity that we hope will be strengthened. We recognize we are also challenged to seek new, creative, and more fruitful ways both to sustain our historical connections with FUM as part of the wider Quaker community, and to continue our efforts to reach unity with them on this specific issue.

Fourth, we recognize that there are specific peace and social justice programs under the auspices of FUM for which we have been grateful and that we have joyfully supported over many years. We intend to continue our direct support of these projects, such as Ramallah Friends School.