News reports I have read today (in the Lakeland Ledger, for instance), note that, in a General Conference gathering presided over by Florida Bishop Timothy Whitaker, the UMC church chose to “hold the line” on homosexuality.

In fact, it chose, after a rancorous debate, to accept a minority report on the Methodist teaching about homosexuality that makes that teaching even more rigid than it previous was–adding a statement about heterosexual marriage as the only acceptable form of marriage.

A blog report by Will J. Green on the blog “Religion Is a Queer Thing” suggests that Bishop Whitaker did not allow substantive debate to take place, re: the two proposals before the Conference. Instead, if this report is correct, he allowed the debate time to be eaten up until he permitted Rev. Eddie Fox, a longtime opponent of attempts to bring UMC teaching on homosexuality into creative dialogue with postmodern culture, to preach a firebrand sermon calling on Methodists to hold the line.

The implication I gather from this blog report is that the continued dominance of the UMC by conservative white Southern males is running the risk of making the UMC irrelevant to young people who understand what is happening to the world in the shift to postmodernity.

If Bishop Whitaker represents the view of mainstream Christians in Florida towards their gay and lesbian neighbors, then Florida may have difficulty attracting creative young folks in the future. On the other hand, according to the Ledger, 10 of the 26 Florida delegates to General Conference stood up in protest following the anti-gay vote, so it seems there is a diversity of thought among Methodists in Florida about these issues–though that diversity may not be well represented by the current UMC bishop of Florida.

The research I’m citing re: the “creativity quotient” was done by Richard Florida in his book The Creative Class. Florida notes that as we move to a postmodern economic and social pattern worldwide–away from industrialism–many creative young folks who once lived in areas dominated by industry will uproot themselves, looking for new kinds of employment.

He sees these folks as the wave of the future, since they help move their new communities to a viable postmodern social and economic way of doing business. Floria’s analysis notes that we can’t continue doing business as in the past, if we expect to be economically viable and attract creative new people to our communities. We can’t go along the same path, because the kinds of jobs that sustained modern economy don’t exist in a postmodern world.

The shift to postmodernity requires that young people be technologically astute, capable of dealing with all kinds of people (with diversity of all kinds), capable of understanding the intricate connections that shape the postmodern world, and capable of adapting quickly to sudden economic and social changes.

Studies show that young people with those traits don’t move to communities that are homophobic–whether they themselves are gay or not. They recognize that homophobia is part of a whole set of attitudes that hold a community in the past, and don’t let it move forward.

These same studies show that creative, talented, bright young folks are moving to areas around the country that welcome diversity, that have a high percentage of jobs in creative and high-tech sectors, that preserve the environment and have green spaces surrounding the city, and that welcome gay and lesbian people.

Communities and states that promote homophobia are shooting themselves in the foot culturally, economically, and in terms of having a viable future, if Richard Florida is right.