Methodist Jury OK's Gay Pastor

Jury finds Church Law Contradictory

After a three-day trial, a jury of fellow ministers acquitted an Ellensburg, Wash., pastor of violating United Methodist Church law by living openly as a lesbian, saying the church has not clearly declared homosexuality to be incompatible with Christian teaching.

Yesterday's verdict is a milestone for liberals in the church who want to reverse its ban on "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" in the clergy, and it is a defeat for conservatives seeking to hold the line against the gay rights movement in the church and in secular society.

Like Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans and other mainstream Protestants, Methodists have been battling for years over whether to allow gay clergy and holy union ceremonies for same-sex couples. The church's governing General Conference, which meets every four years and will next convene April 27 in Pittsburgh, has heatedly debated resolutions on the issue at every session since 1972.

As a result, the jury had to weigh a series of carefully balanced phrases in the church's legal code, the fruit of many hard-won legislative compromises. On one hand, the church's Book of Discipline says that because "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve" as pastors.

On the other hand, it also says that sexuality is "God's good gift to all persons," that homosexuals "are individuals of sacred worth," that "God's grace is available to all," and that "certain basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons."