The Pacific Union Conference has released its list of delegates to the San Antonio General Conference Session. The Pacific Union, which includes California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah, will send the 38 delegates (15.7% of the North American Division's total of 241 delegates), listed below. While the total number of women who will serve as General Conference delegates (436) is only 17% of the total 2,566 delegates, women account for 42% of the delegates from the Pacific Union Conference.
PACIFIC UNION CONFERENCE DELEGATES TO GC SESSION 2015
NON-ADMINISTRATIVE DELEGATES
Benjamin Lundquist Jacqueline Neumann -F Carolann De Leon -F Shirley Chang -F Mayra Thompson -F George MacArthur Ronald Rasmussen Elouise Kaanaana -F Robyn Cordova -F Albert Miller Marc Woodson Marvin Wray Sylvia Ahn -F Barbara Morrison -F John Brunt Caleb Jara George King Randy Roberts Veronica Chalco -F Lawrence Geraty Kendra Haloviak -F Tai Kim -F Stefani McFarland -F Harold Crook Stewart Walker Anne Elisabeth Gray -F Janet Lui -F Patricia Hokama -F
ADMINISTRATIVE DELEGATES
Tony Anobile Ralph Watts III Ramiro Cano Ed Keyes Jim Pedersen Sandra Roberts -F Velino Salazar Ricardo Graham Bradford Newton Ted Benson
TOTAL DELEGATES: 38 WOMEN DELEGATES: 16 PERCENT MALE/FEMALE: 58/42
This should be no surprise to those of us who have long known the “West Coast Adventists” were leaders in equality and acceptance of all. Reading many of the comments here, much of the rest of the U.S. and especially the world, has a long way to go before acceptance of everyone as equal.
Bravo for the PUC, with the largest conference’s president as a representative delegate! To paraphrase Garrison Keillor: “All Our women are beautiful and above average.”
Hmmm, do you suppose they’ll let Sandy Roberts vote? I’m happy to say Bob and I started our ministry in Pacific Union, and specifically in SE Cal Conference.
I thought I had things straight in my head but I am confused again.
If the PUC can have roughly 50% women as delegates why is it that the majority of conferences won’t? The Church officially makes this statement about the underrepresentation of women:
A question that is certain to be asked when reading statistics on gender representation is why is the percentage of female delegates so small when it is perceived that women are in the majority as pertains to Church membership? The answer is simple. While efforts are continually made to ensure that the entire delegation shall be comprised of both genders, currently the positions from which these delegates are named and that generate the majority of delegates for the Session are held by males. This will change over time as more women are elected to leadership positions and Conference or Union executive committee membership.
This seems to indicate that delegates are chosen due to their leadership positions as a policy. On the other hand, I read in a discussion thread here that the conferences don’t have ex-officio delegates. This breakdown for the PUC indicates an administrative and non-administrative groups. I assume that the administrative delegates can be anyone with an administrative role and is not related to specific positions.
Is there no real reason that the percentage of women is so low except for explicit choices made to do so? The PUC leadership is predominantly male, yet they can field a gender balanced team of delegates.
If she’s a delegate, they’ll have to let her vote; the question is whether or not she’ll vote as a conference president—but even they get only one vote. I wonder if this means that the conference is one vote short of a full delegation? Probably not.
According to Pacific Union policy, all local presidents are administrative delegates, but when they get to San Antonio they are all just Union representatives. Why Sandra Roberts – or anyone else – was chosen by the union is of no concern to the GC.
