Lesbian minister appeals defrocking
Stripped of her credentials at a church trial on Dec. 2, Beth Stroud will challenge the United Methodist Church's ban on gay clergy
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
Beth Stroud, the former associate pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG) who was found guilty of violating the United Methodist Church's ban on gay clergy by a church trial court, filed an appeal this week to challenge the Dec. 2 ruling that resulted in her defrocking.
Still employed by FUMCOG as a lay worker, Stroud had said the option of an appeal "weighed heavy on my heart" in the days and weeks following her two-day church trial earlier this month.
The challenge, filed with the denomination's Northeastern Jurisdictional Committee on Appeals, contends that Stroud was denied fair process when jurors who objected to the United Methodist Church's Book of Discipline -- which precludes "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from being ordained -- on moral grounds were excluded from the jury pool. Also, the appeal takes issue with what Stroud refers to as the church's "narrow application of one paragraph," claiming that the law on which the ruling was based violates the spirit of the denomination's constitution, which "calls us a church to stand against every form of discrimination" and urges members to "treat all people as equally loved by God," she said.
"In light of the totality of church law, you have to make a choice," she said.
Clearly exhausted after a round of interviews with the national press, Stroud told the Local late Monday that her decision came after considerable hesitance, knowing an appeal would bring attendant media coverage. "I'm tired, and it's been stressful for me and my family," Stroud said in a phone interview from her home. "Being a person not comfortable with the spotlight, I hesitated" to challenge the church's ruling, she said.
Stroud's case, which began in April 2003 when she publicly came out to her congregation as a lesbian in a "covenant relationship," has garnered national attention, most prominently in an interview with The New York Times Magazine on Dec. 19. She is likely to feel even more heat when The Congregation, a documentary about FUMCOG and her slow march to a church trial, premieres on PBS on Dec. 29.
"I tried to discern if this decision would shut down the dialogue about the issue in the church," Stroud said of the appeal. "But I feel this is an important avenue for the church to wrestle with some important questions they were not able to address during the trial."
Earlier this month, Stroud's defense team had intended to use similar arguments during the church trial, but presiding Bishop Joseph H. Yeakel sustained the church's objection to a defense built around constitutional challenge, maintaining that a trial court was not the proper forum for debating church law.
Stroud told the Associated Press that Yeakel's comment to her after the trial -- he told her "the day will come when the church apologizes for this decision" -- figured into her decision to bring an appeal.
Though the jury, comprised of 13 regional Methodist clerics, found Stroud guilty of "engaging in practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings" by a 12-1 margin, it delivered a 7-6 vote to revoke her credentials.
A reversal of the ruling could bring a retrial or a new sentence.
One of three lesbian pastors brought before a trial court in the denomination's history, she is the only one to challenge the church's ruling.
A pastor in Ellensburg, Wash. was acquitted earlier this year on a language technicality that was later eliminated by the larger church, which reaffirmed its ban on gay clergy at its annual meeting in May. A New Hampshire pastor was defrocked in 1987.