Methodist trial over gay clergy to begin

By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press

The Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud could be defrocked.

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PUGHTOWN, Pa. — The latest clash in the struggle among mainline Protestant denominations over gay clergy hits a critical point today with the church trial of a United Methodist Church minister who declared in a sermon last year that she is a lesbian living with her partner.

The Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud of Philadelphia could be defrocked if she loses at the trial, which is expected to run two or three days.

It's the third test of the church's 1984 law barring "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from the ministry. The policy was reaffirmed by a 72 percent vote at the Methodists' General Conference in May.

Given that language, conviction might seem automatic. But last March, a church court acquitted the Rev. Karen Dammann, a pastor in Washington state who also lives openly with a same-sex partner, and the Methodists' national supreme court decided it had no power to review the verdict.

In the other such trial, the Rev. Rose Mary Denman of New Hampshire was defrocked in 1987.

Stroud, 34, was ordained and assigned in 1999 as associate pastor of Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown. Two years later, Stroud held a "covenant ceremony" with her partner, Chris Paige, at Paige's Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia.

Stroud notified her Germantown congregation of the relationship in a sermon on April 27, 2003. "I know that by telling the truth about myself I risk losing my credentials," she said, but decided "my walk with Christ requires telling the whole truth."

Stroud says if she is defrocked, the congregation has promised she can continue her educational, pastoral and preaching work under lay status, though she would no longer be able to preside at baptisms or communion services.

The presiding judge at the trial is Joseph Yeakel, the retired bishop of Washington, D.C., who in 1996 joined 15 bishops in saying "it is time to break the silence" and protest their church's stance on gays.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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