UMC Traditionalists Disagree with Lesbian Pastor's Trial Verdict

by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
March 25, 2004

(AgapePress) - The president of a women's movement in the United Methodist Church says the acquittal of lesbian pastor Karen Dammann could very well split the denomination. The decision of a UMC panel to exonerate the pastor on charges of "practices incompatible with Christian teaching" is already drawing opposition from several denomination members.

Dammann, who says she is involved in a committed relationship with her live-in lesbian partner, was cleared last Saturday by a jury of 13 fellow minister's from the denomination's very liberal Pacific Northwest conference. Although the UMC Book of Discipline states that "self avowed homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve" in the denomination, 11 panelists voted to acquit her, while two were undecided.

Nevertheless, despite the prosecution's confrontation of the jury with quotes from scripture and the Discipline referring to the practice of homosexuality as incompatible with Christian doctrine, the majority of the panelists decided that none of these statements constituted "a declaration" condemning the practice or preventing a lesbian pastor from remaining in her post.

But Faye Short, who heads the Renew Network, says Dammann should have been convicted of violating church rules for living in an immoral relationship with another woman. "We simply must be able to hold people accountable to the Book of Discipline if we are to remain together as a covenant community," Short says, "if we are to be a connectional system as the Methodist Church claims to be."

Dammann had many supporters within the church, pro-homosexual members who claim that scripture is silent or ambivalent on the issue of homosexuality. But Short says both the Bible and Church tradition place homosexuality outside the bounds of acceptable practice.

"We are standing on the tradition of biblical faith and a Christian understanding of morals and ethics that goes back from the inception of the Church," Renew Network's president says, "so therefore, we cannot give up those standards. We do love and care for persons who have differing viewpoints, but we would call them to a transformed life."

Short feels the acquittal is an issue that will have to be confronted when the UMC holds its upcoming quadrennial General Conference in Pittsburgh late next month. And as the date draws near, many delegates have already begun the discussion.

Rev. Bill McAlilly of Tupelo, Mississippi, is a state delegate to next month's conference. He agrees with Short that the outcome of Dammann's trial was wrong. He is quoted in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal as saying that the Discipline is supposed to be "our guide in such matters," but that the lesbian pastor's acquittal was in no way compatible with its guidelines.

And another delegate from the state, Bill Smallwood of New Albany, told the newspaper that the jury in Dammann's was clearly in defiance of church laws that, he contends, clearly call for "celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in marriage."

And Bill Scott, a delegate and member of Asbury United Methodist Church in Holly Springs, Mississippi, said he would most likely have differed with the legal conclusions of the jurors had he been on the panel. He believes the church needs to be reviewing its understanding of human sexuality in light of scripture.

All three delegates told the journal that they expect the ruling will continue to stir controversy in the UMC national assembly, which has been debating the issue of homosexuality since 1972. "I know that that is going to be a very divisive issue at General Conference," Scott said, adding that he hopes the topic will not overshadow all the other work the conference needs to get done.