Not surprisingly, some UM leaders thought (they probably still do but I’m sticking to the evidence at hand) doctrine to be irrelevant – as long as growth (and positive publicity?) could be had. Consider this observation in the San Francisco Examiner on Cecil Williams & Glide Memorial:

Highers-up from the United Methodist Church visited with Williams in 2000, hoping to increase membership by taking some of Williams’ ideas back to their own communities, even though many of those ideas conflict with official Methodist doctrine. For instance, the United Methodist Church has adopted a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for its members, banning the ordaining of gay ministers and the sanctioning of same-sex unions.