This congregation is clearly wrong if it believes it is following UMC doctrine on homosexuality by asserting that being gay is a “gift” of any kind. The UMC Discipline is pretty clear in its rejection of homosexual CONDUCT. I am willing to assume, for argument’s sake, that homosexual ORIENTATION is, at least in some cases, something one is born with (somehow it doesn’t seem reasonable that it could be genetic). But we are born with many orientations and inclinations that, when acted upon, are universally denounced, as they should be. I happen to be heterosexual, and happily married, but I confess that my inclination and orientation is to ogle, and if given the opportunity, grope (gently, of course) and attempt to seduce nearly any attractive woman I see. Sadly, I learned early in my teenage years that not everyone woman sees me as the irresistable guy that I clearly am. It became painfully apparent that my orientation was not seen as a gift by many women, and so I had to learn restraint in my behavior, if not in my thoughts. Now that I am much older the physical restraint is a little easier, but the orientation remains.
I believe that we should love all people, even those it may be difficult to love, including those with homosexual orientation and even those who live a homosexual lifestyle, just as we ought to love all sinners (which is all of us). Love, however, does not mean acceptance of sinful conduct as some sort of “gift” of God.
You make some good points, though I have to wonder (as a non-Methodist) how effective UMC authority really is if it allows this “church” to stay in business, as it were.
But on the broader question of orientation and inclination, one could argue that the whole point of ethics, especially sexual ethics, is to process and channel human (i.e. fallen) desires in appropriate ways. On a very basic level, the Biblical model of marriage acknowledges and celebrates our desires for sex and romance, while still insisting that there is only one way to express those desires legitimately: in a monogamous, heterosexual marriage. So, I’m wary of approaching homosexuality as any sort of inherent orientation, instead of treating it (as the Bible does) as a clearly disordered perversion of legitimate sexual desire. The question should not be, as many liberal churches have claimed, how to live Christianly as a homosexual, but rather how to deny the lie that living Christianly can even admit the legitimacy of homosexual desire.