Court reverses appeals panel, rules against lesbian pastor

United Methodist News Service
HOUSTON—The Judicial Council has reversed an appeals court ruling in the case of a lesbian pastor from Pennsylvania.
The Oct. 31 action by the United Methodist “supreme court” restored the original trial court verdict that removed the clergy credentials of Irene Elizabeth “Beth” Stroud.
The former associate pastor at First UMC of Germantown in Philadelphia was convicted by a clergy trial court last December of violating church law. She had publicly admitted to being a practicing lesbian.
The Book of Discipline prohibits the ordination and appointment of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”
The trial court in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference revoked Stroud’s credentials, but a jurisdictional court of appeals set aside that ruling in April.
“The Northeast Jurisdiction Committee on Appeals erred in reversing and setting aside the verdict and penalty from Rev. Stroud’s trial,” the Judicial Council said in its eight-page ruling.
In an Oct. 31 telephone interview, Stroud said she “will continue to stay in The United Methodist Church and work for change.”
“Today’s decision shows that the existing discrimination in The United Methodist Church is clear,” she said. “There’s no room to be in denial about that. But if you stay in the relationship, there is opportunity for conversation. That’s the beauty of our United Methodist Church. We’re all in this together.”
Stroud said she planned to continue working at the Germantown church as a lay employee. She has worked in that status since the December trial court ruling.
The Rev. Thomas Hall, pastor of Crossroads UMC, Chester Springs, Pa., and counsel for the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, said the case wasn’t about Stroud, who has “wonderful pastoral gifts,” but about the “clear language” in the Discipline.
“This (case) is about the authority General Conference has to determine and enforce requirements for ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church,” Hall told Judicial Council during oral arguments. “What is at stake is the very integrity of The Book of Discipline.”
The Book of Discipline says The United Methodist Church believes “all persons are individuals of sacred worth” and that “the church is committed to be in ministry with all persons, and to support civil rights for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation.”
The book also says that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” and that “self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”
Stroud’s advocates noted that the denomination’s Constitution says “no conference or other organizational unit of the church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body of the church because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition.”
They argued that the word “status” in that section is ambiguous.
The Judicial Council ruled that Discipline Paragraph 304.2 “is not directed at the status of being a homosexual or having a particular sexual orientation.” The court said the regulation applies to “practicing” homosexuals rather than a person’s sexual orientation.
“No provision of the Discipline bars a person with same-sex orientation from the ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church,” the ruling said. “Rather, Paragraph 304.3 is directed toward those persons who practice that same-sex orientation by engaging in prohibited sexual activity.
“Likewise, persons who have a heterosexual orientation who practice that orientation in prohibited ways—by not practicing fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness as required by Paragraph 304.2—are subject to chargeable offenses.”