Methodist Panel Dismisses Complaint on Rite for Gays

A United Methodist Church investigative committee has dismissed a rare formal complaint against 68 ministers who staged the largest mass disobedience in church history by officiating at a lesbian couple’s “holy union” last year.

The decision, which brought protests from conservatives within the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination, was announced Friday by Bishop Melvin G. Talbert of the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church. It means the 68 clergy will not stand trial before a church court that could have stripped them of their ministerial credentials.

“No further steps or actions will be pursued,” Talbert said. The bishop supports same-sex unions but had reluctantly pressed forward with a complaint against the ministers that had been brought last May by evangelicals within the church.

The decision by a church committee closes the books on an episode that underscored deep divisions within the nation’s churches over homosexuality.

But Methodist evangelicals, who brought the complaint against the Rev. Don Fado of Sacramento’s St. Mark’s United Methodist Church and 67 other ministers, were angered by what they saw as defiance of church law.

In response, evangelical leaders said Friday that they would step up efforts to create a separate western states jurisdiction within the United Methodist Church for those who believe that homosexual intimacy is contrary to biblical morality.

“Today’s decision . . . has effectively ended the rule of discipline,” said the Rev. Greg Smith, senior pastor of Hope United Methodist Church in Sacramento. “We have basically said that we now follow our own individual consciences. It’s a sad day that could lead to a division and even a breakup.”

James V. Heidinger II, president and publisher of Good News, an evangelical publication, decried the committee’s decision as “an arrogant disregard for the order and discipline of the church.”

And in Bakersfield, the Rev. Robert L. Kuyper, president of the Evangelical Renewal Fellowship and one of those who filed the complaint against Fado and the others, said the decision reflects a breakdown in United Methodist unity.

“One of the issues here is [whether] the United Methodist Church in Georgia is the same as the one in California. Obviously not,” Kuyper said.

Kuyper founded the Transforming Congregations, a group of Methodist congregations that believe that homosexuality is a choice that can be reversed.

Talbert told reporters that the decision will not resolve tension and conflict over homosexuality. “In fact,” he said, “we may never reach agreement around this issue. The dialogue and the struggle will continue.”

Last year, two other United Methodist ministers, the Rev. Jimmy Creech of Omaha and the Rev. Gregory Dell of Chicago, were found guilty of violating church law by blessing a gay marriage. Creech was removed from his ministry and Dell was suspended for a year. But under Methodist rules, each of the church’s 66 regional groupings has the final word within its own jurisdictional area on who is fit for ministry.

Opponents of gay unions note that the church law that bans ministers from performing such ceremonies was affirmed last August by the denomination’s highest court, the Judicial Council. Having some regional conferences punish ministers for violating the rule while others refuse to do so is like three different federal district courts applying a Supreme Court ruling differently, they assert.

Among supporters of same-sex unions, however, the church’s decision was met with celebration.

“Today’s announcement sends a message to gays and lesbians that there are people in the church who are open to accepting them as brothers and sisters,” said Fado.

Ellie Charlton, who was one of the two women whose union Fado and the other ministers had blessed, joined her pastor at a news conference. “A lot of gay people have left the church over the years,” she said. “Hopefully now some of them will come back.”

Another one of the ministers, the Rev. Judith Stone of Grace United Methodist Church in Saratoga, called the decision to drop the case courageous. “There are many people who are not going to be happy with this,” she said.

In handing down its decision, the California-Nevada investigating council said that in determining whether a trial was warranted, it avoided a decision based solely on last year’s ceremony.

Panelists admitted division within the conference over homosexuality that has “resulted in division and tension among us.” But, they added, “we also affirm that our history . . . exemplifies a commitment to the value of inclusiveness.”