METHODIST JURY CONVICTS LESBIAN MINISTER

Richard Ostling of the AP reports today on the outcome of the trial of a self-declared lesbian United Methodist minister, which has been pending for over a year.

The big news - this is the first time that a self-proclaimed homosexual minister has lost such a trial since 1987. This is even though the General Conference, which makes church law for the United Methodists, has always voted that self-declared homosexuals may not be ordained ministers in the United Methodist Church. So it is a true landmark case.

The gist of the article:

PUGHTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A jury made up of United Methodist Church clergy convicted a lesbian minister Thursday of violating church law by openly living with her partner in a committed relationship.

The Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud could be defrocked as a result of the ruling, which came on the second day of her church trial. The same 13-member jury was set to meet Thursday afternoon to decide her penalty.

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.

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.

Stroud, 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.