Lesbian Pastor Refuses to Plead Guilty, Expects to Lose Trial
On the opening day of her trial, the lesbian United Methodist clergywoman Beth Stroud said she does not expect to remain as a pastor of the United Methodist Church but refused to plead guilty to the charges.
On the opening day of her trial, the lesbian United Methodist clergywoman Beth Stroud said she does not expect to remain as a pastor of the United Methodist Church (UMC), but refused to plead guilty to the charges.
“To win a verdict would be an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit. I don't expect that,” said Stroud, during a news conference after the first day of deliberations.
Stroud, 34, is charged with violating the laws of the 8.2-million denomination, which states that a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” are unfit for clergy because homosexuality is a practice “declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings”.
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If convicted, Stroud may be defrocked and lose her clergy credentials.
During her trial, which began Dec 1, Stroud told the church court that she lives with her lesbian partner, but refused to plead guilty to violating the obvious ban on gay clerics, according to the Boston Globe.
''For me to plead guilty would be to say I violated the sacred trust of an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church," Stroud said. ''I believe I have not violated that trust."
However, the Rev. Thomas Hall of Exton Pa, prosecutor in the case, reminded the court that Stroud’s pastoral abilities were not in question during the trial. He added that the fact that she is a “self-avowed” lesbian is clear as well.
What is in question, Hall said, is whether she violated the UMC laws that say “self-avowed” and “practicing homosexuals” are unfit for clergy.
Under further questioning by Hall, Stroud confessed that she is in fact in a sexual relationship with her lover, Chris Paige.
''One aspect of our relationship is that we express our love for each other sexually and with our bodies," Stroud said.
On the side of the defense, Stroud’s lawyer Rev. J. Dennis Williams of Cornwall, Pa, asked why Stroud chose a career with the Methodists as opposed to more liberal denominations such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church.
She answered that she “felt I was called to go home. This is the church I grew up in.”
Williams then said that Stroud’s case may be one of those extraordinary cases where people are called to preach in the “impulse of the Spirit.”
Methodist founder John Wesley decided women should preach ''if they are under an extraordinary impulse of the Spirit," despite New Testament passages that appear to forbid them from doing so, said Williams.
In the last such lesbian trial, the Rev. Karen Dammann was acquitted of similar charges as Stroud. In the muddled case, the jury found that while Dammann was in fact a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual,” she neither violated the teachings of the United Methodist Church nor the Bible, because other parts of the Methodist constitution and the Bible promotes inclusiveness to all people. Observers said the verdict seemed to place the Methodist law on trial, as opposed to the lesbian cleric Dammann.
Williams, who will present the defense case on Nov. 2, is expected to argue on similar grounds as Dammann’s defense. However, his wiggle room is much more restricted, due to the ruling by the presiding judge, retired Bishop Joseph Yeakel of Washington D.C., hours before the trial opened.
Upon hearing that Stroud’s team had planned to bring in a slew of “experts” to technically prove the denomination’s prohibition of gay clerics is against Wesley’s Articles of Religion, Hall said those matters are not relevant to the present case and that it is up to the national Methodist court and legislative conference to decide such questions.
Yeakel agreed that such legal questions are ''not relevant to this case.”
Dammann’s trial, which was held in March 2004, sparked a firestorm of criticism from conservative Methodists who said the jury and judge attempted to re-write Methodist law. During the quadrennial General Conference in May, the UMC’s highest court reaffirmed that bishops should not ordain open and active homosexuals, and the legislative body upheld– with a 72% vote – the current ordination standards.
During the press conference following the trial, Hall reiterated the need to stay focused on the issue.
“We are faced with a person who is open and honest about her sexuality,” and that is why the trial is occurring, Hall said. “When someone steps over the line, we are to be accountable.”
”Noting the difficulty of confronting a colleague based on the Book of Discipline, he said the “the trial is to determine guilt or innocence, not to debate a word.”
It requires the votes of nine out of thirteen clergy jurors to convict and defrock Stroud; however, penalties range from loss of credentials to less severe punishments. Stroud said that if she is stripped of her credentials, she will become a layperson on staff at First Church in Germantown.
When reporters asked why she chose to come out as a lesbian despite the obvious ramifications, Stroud said her remaining silent would have compromised her growth as a Christian and “my integrity in my ministry.”
Keeping my sexuality a secret has made me to not be as effective as a minister as I could have been,” said Stroud, who added that she has been much more at peace since her decision to come out 18 months ago.
“I believe God created me to be a lesbian,” Stroud said, sitting next to Paige. “I feel profoundly that God called me into ministry in the United Methodist Church.”
She also said that while she hopes the UMC will change its laws on ordaining active homosexuals, “I do not know…whether that will happen with my case.”
Stroud, assistant pastor of First United Methodist Church in Germantown, Pa, admitted that she was sexually active in a letter to her congregation in 2002; she and Paige “wed” at a nearby United Church of Christ-related congregation two years earlier.
The case, which is expected to run through the week, is held at the Camp Innabah retreat center in Philadelphia near Pottstown, Pa.
