United Methodist law opposes homosexuality

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PITTSBURGH -- United Methodist law clearly teaches that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, the highest court in the denomination ruled yesterday.

The Judicial Council, which met during the denomination's General Conference, said violating that church law could be cause for removal from church office. A delegate from Arkansas had asked the council to rule on the matter after a case in Washington state in which a lesbian minister told her bishop she was in a committed relationship with a woman.

The Rev. Karen Dammann had been charged with practices declared "incompatible with Christian teaching" under Methodist law. A jury of 13 pastors from her region effectively ruled in March that church law, however, did not make it a chargeable offense for homosexual clergy to be sexually active. They found Miss Dammann not guilty.

Bishop Lawrence McCleskey, who leads the Columbia Area Annual Conference in South Carolina, said the decision yesterday will not affect the Dammann case. He said church law does not allow the General Conference or any other church body to appeal a decision made by another part of the church. However, he said the decision clarifies that somebody in Miss Dammann's position could be subject to church discipline in the future.

"I think the decision clarified the issue that was on everybody's mind," Bishop McCleskey said.

The breakdown of the vote in the judicial council decision yesterday was not released, but it included two dissenting opinions from members who think that the language is unclear and is not law.

Conservatives praised the decision by the nine-member court.

"Church law has been unchanging for three decades, but increasingly, certain local or regional jurisdictions have been unwilling to enforce church law," said Mark Tooley, a spokesman for the United Methodist Action Program of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative advocacy group.

Still, Mr. Tooley said the question of homosexual clergy will remain unresolved until the General Conference or Judicial Council passes legislation to enforce church law.

The Rev. Elaine Stanovsky, head of the Pacific Northwest Conference delegation, which ruled on the Washington case, said the decision could influence Miss Dammann's situation.

Miss Dammann currently is on family leave and awaiting a new appointment by her bishop, a process that could be affected by the clarified interpretation, Miss Stanovsky said.

"And the fact that there were two dissenting opinions continues to affirm the fact that the church is not of one mind about these matters," she said.

The decision yesterday does not seek to define what is meant by "practice of homosexuality," only whether it can be used as the basis for excluding someone from ministry.

Traditionalists said the jury in the Dammann case knowingly ignored church law out of sympathy for homosexual pastors. Conservatives came to the national meeting intent on finding a way to enforce the homosexual ordination ban.

The debate over homosexuality is expected to dominate the agenda of the conference, which is held every four years and runs through May 7.

The 8.3 million-member denomination is not expected to break apart about the issue. Delegates have rejected proposals more accepting of sexually active homosexuals by about 60 percent to 40 percent over the years. That voting trend is expected to continue among the 1,000 delegates this year.