Methodist Publisher Predicts Lesbian Pastor Will Be Found Guilty
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
March 15, 2004
(AgapePress) - A leading spokesman for renewal in the United Methodist Church is predicting the outcome of this week's church trial of lesbian minister Karen Dammann.
A complaint was filed against Dammann after she told her bishop in February 2001 that she was "living in a partnered, covenanted homosexual relationship." On Wednesday, the Ellensburg, Washington, pastor will go on trial for defying the UMC's Book of Discipline, which bars homosexuals from being ordained or serving as pastors. While church law states that homosexuals are people of sacred worth, it regards the practice of homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teachings.
Presiding over the trial will be Bishop William Boyd Grove of Charleston, West Virginia. According to United Methodist News Service, Grove presided over the 1999 clergy trial of Jimmy Creech, who was charged with violating church law by officiating at same-sex union services. Creech, who had already undergone a clergy trial in 1998 for similar charges, was found guilty in 1999 and lost his ministerial orders.
Jim Heidinger, president and publisher of Good News magazine, expects similar results in the Dammann trial. In fact, he says it ought to an "open and shut" case.
"[S]he has already admitted publicly to the bishop and his cabinet that she's in that relationship -- so it ought to be a given that they would find her guilty," the publisher says. "And then [after that] the trial court has to determine a punishment. So we think that they will come up with a [guilty] decision."
Although the UMC has been living as a "divided" denomination for some time now, Heidinger maintains the church's General Conference is not divided on the issue of homosexuality.
"The United Methodist Church has been very clear that we are strongly opposed to same-sex covenants," he says, "and we're not about to affirm homosexual practice in the [denomination] even though we have some groups making a great deal of noise and getting a good bit of publicity in the press."
A jury of 13 plus two alternates will be chosen from a pool of at least 35 Methodist pastors from the Pacific Northwest conference. Jury selection is slated to begin Wednesday morning at Bothell United Methodist Church in Bothell, Washington, where the trial will take place. The denomination's Judicial Council has indicated it will retain jurisdiction on the matter to make sure the church does not make a mockery of the case by disobeying church law.
