Friday, December 03, 2004

Methodist jury in US convicts lesbian minister

PUGHTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) - The United Methodist Church defrocked a lesbian minister who lives with her partner Thursday for violating the denomination's ban on actively gay clergy - the first such decision by the church in 17 years.

A 13-member jury made up of Methodist clergy convicted the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud on the second day of her church trial.

Methodist law bars "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals'' from ministry.

Nine votes were necessary for a conviction and the jury voted 12-1 to find Stroud guilty.

It then voted 7-6 to defrock Stroud, the bare majority necessary in the penalty phase of the trial, though her supportive congregation in Philadelphia has said Stroud can continue performing most of her duties.

"I did not go into this trial expecting to win,'' Stroud said.

"I went into it knowing it would be a painful moment in the life of the United Methodist Church.''

Stroud hasn't decide whether to appeal the verdict, which she can do at any point in the next 30 days.

The last time the 8.3 million-member denomination convicted an openly gay cleric was in 1987, when a New Hampshire church court defrocked the Rev. Rose Mary Denman.

Last March, a Methodist court in Washington state acquitted the Rev. Karen Dammann, who lives with a same-sex partner, citing an ambiguity in church law that the Methodist supreme court has since eliminated.

The Methodists are just one of several mainline Protestant denominations in the United States - including the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches - which are undergoing turmoil over the role of gays and lesbians in the church, particularly gay clergy.

The Stroud case will likely make the debate over the issue among Methodists that much more intense.

Stroud said she was saddened by the verdict, but also saw it as a teaching moment that showed how divided her denomination is over homosexuality.

Stroud, 34, an associate pastor at Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown, set the case in motion last year when she announced to her bishop and congregation that she was living in a committed relationship with her partner, Chris Paige.

At her trial, Stroud's defense was dealt a blow when the presiding judge Joseph Yeakel, the retired bishop of Washington, D.C., excluded expert testimony from six defense witnesses who believe the church's gay clergy ban violates its own legal principles.

The senior pastor of Stroud's church, the Rev. Alfred Day III, attempted to raise a similar issue when he took the stand, saying "I believe that even the testimony of Scripture is far from clear on this subject.''

"We have more muddle than clarity,'' he said. But the Rev. Thomas Hall of Exton, Pennsylvania, the prosecutor, asked Yeakel to strike Day's statement and the judge instructed the jury that "constitutional issues are not before this court.''

Stroud's defense counsel, the Rev. J. Dennis Williams, said in closing arguments that "the heart of the issue is whether all United Methodists, regardless of status, are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities.''

"I only wish you could hear the full testimony we wished to present,'' Williams said.

But Hall told jurors they had a duty to "hold a good pastor accountable to the standard with which we all live'' under the Methodist Book of Discipline.

The basic facts in the case were never in dispute, since Stroud had declared she was gay.

The only two defense witnesses to be called were Day and the senior pastor who supervised her in Westchester, Pennsylvania. Both lavishly praised her performance in preaching, teaching and pastoral work.

Hall agreed with that assessment.

Stroud's Philadelphia congregation has already agreed that she can continue doing her work as a lay employee without clergy status.

However, she will be unable to celebrate baptism or Communion. - AP

Latest business news from AP-Wire

News

Methodist jury in US convicts lesbian minister