The United Methodist Church is headed for a high-level ruling on whether openly gay clergy will be allowed to serve.

The Executive Committee of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church decided last week to appeal a lower body’s reversal of a ban on lesbian Irene Beth Stroud serving as a Methodist minister.

The Northeastern Jurisdictional Committee of Appeals convened at the Sheraton International Hotel on the grounds of the Baltimore Washington International Airport on April 28 and heard Stroud’s appeal.

The next day, the committee reversed the church trial court decision that found Stroud guilty of “violating church law by being a self avowed practicing homosexual.”

The appeals committee ruled in favor of Stroud on the procedural grounds that “practicing homosexual” has never been defined in church law, and while church law prohibits discrimination based on status, status is also undefined. The committee wrote that, “The evidence in support of the charge was overwhelming and would be sustained in the absence of legal error.”

With 8.3 million members, the United Methodist Church is the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

Bishops meet with Bush
News of the reversal came as the Council of Bishops, a group made up of all active and retired Methodist bishops, gathered in Washington for its spring meeting. The announcement that the church would appeal the decision in favor of Stroud came on the same day that a group of bishops held a meeting with President Bush. The Methodists said that they presented a Bible to Bush, who reportedly declared that he is proud to be a Methodist.

Bush is opposed to same-sex marriage, a position shared by the United Methodist Church.

The Judicial Council is expected to review the case at its October meeting.

Stroud, 35, was ordained as an elder in the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference in 1997. After serving for two years as associate pastor at West Chester United Methodist Church, she was appointed as associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia.

Stroud came out to her congregation in a sermon on April 27, 2003. She said that she had decided that being secretive about her sexual orientation was distancing her from God.

In a sermon titled “Walking in the Light” Stroud told her congregation that she was living in a committed relationship with another woman and introduced her partner, Chris Paige. She asked parishioners not to spring into hasty political campaigning around her case, but rather, to prepare casseroles for one another and host discussions so that the church might more gracefully weather the controversy.

Bishop Peter Weaver issued a formal complaint alleging that Stroud had engaged in “practices declared by the Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings.” When a nine-month supervisory process between Weaver and Stroud did not lead to reconciliation, Stroud was served with a Judicial Complaint.

Both of the bishops that Stroud had served under spoke highly of her during the Dec. 2 church trial. Bishop Peter Weaver, who brought the complaint against Stroud, testified, “She actually is a very fine pastor and a very fine human being.” He added that she has a “strong sense of call to ordained ministry, that is a sacrament. … And we are brothers and sisters in Christ in a very profound way and she lives that with great integrity.”

Parishioners from her church characterized her as an excellent person and exceptional pastor. Rev. Alfred Day, her present senior pastor spoke highly of her as a person who, “from the formation and foundations of her soul loves God and loves the church.” Multiple potential jurors were disqualified from the jury pool when they said that they would not be willing to set aside their feelings and convict Stroud if she was found to violate church law against homosexuality. Stroud was convicted by a 7 to 6 vote.

Stroud had argued that the ban on gay clergy conflicts with the church law against discrimination based on status.

Methodist rules come from the Book of Discipline, which specifies the process through which disputes are to be resolved. The court process is infrequently used. Criminal matters within the church are to be refereed to state authorities and of the civil matters that the church court has jurisdiction over very few have reached the highest court level.

Bishop Marcus Matthews of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the UMC offered to appoint Stroud to her old job as Associate Pastor at First United Church of Germantown in Philadelphia while her case is in the process of appeal.

Stroud declined the appointment and opted to continue to serve as lay minister at the United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia until her case is concluded, according to a statement published to Stroud’s personal Web site.

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