Lesbian Service Costs Minister His Church Post

A Methodist minister who performed a lesbian marriage said he is losing his job.

The Rev. Jimmy Creech said he was told Tuesday that he would not be reappointed after his stint at First United Methodist Church here ends in June.

Creech said he was told by Bishop Joel Martinez that he has been unable to lead his congregation, which has lost a “significant number” of parishioners who opposed the lesbian union ceremony Creech performed in September.

“He felt that I am not going to be able to bring about a reconciliation,” Creech said.

Martinez could not be reached immediately for comment.

In a March church trial, Creech was acquitted of charges that he disobeyed rules by performing the marriage. The case challenged the denomination’s Social Principles.

Creech and his supporters consider the Methodists’ Social Principles to be advisory, not church law like the Book of Discipline. The issue has divided the Methodist Church’s 9.5 million members.

The international Council of Bishops issued a pastoral statement last week reaffirming its belief that it is wrong to perform marriages for same-sex couples.

But the church’s highest judicial body, the Judicial Council, will hold a special session in Dallas in August to consider whether its ministers should be able to perform same-sex marriages.

The Judicial Council cannot make rules but rather interprets religious statements.