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News & Reporting

October 28, 2020

The following article is located at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2014/march/methodists-debate-punishing-pastors-perform-same-sex-umc.html

News & Reporting, March 2014

Gleanings

Methodists Debate Punishing Pastors Who Perform Same-Sex Marriages

New York bishop halts church trials that 'produce no winners,' while opponents say avoiding church discipline increases likelihood of schism.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra | posted March 13, 2014

Methodists Debate Punishing Pastors Who Perform Same-Sex Marriages

Image: Janine and Jim Eden/Flickr

A same-sex marriage ceremony at a United Methodist Church in New York

Update (June 25): A United Methodist Church (UMC) minister who was defrocked in November for performing a same-sex marriage ceremony has been reinstated by the church. An appeals committee decided Tuesday that Frank Schaefer's dismissal as a minister was an unlawful attempt to punish Schaefer based on the fact that he may perform similar marriage ceremonies in the future.

According to the Northeastern Jurisdiction Committee on Appeals: "Our clergy can only be punished for what they have been convicted of doing in the past, not for what they may or may not do in the future."

The committee suspended Schaefer 30 days without pay for knowingly violating church procedure by performing a marriage ceremony between his son and another man in 2007.

"Today there was a very clear and strong signal from the church, and that message is, 'Change is on the way,' " Schaefer toldThe New York Times. "One day we will celebrate the fact that we have moved beyond this horrible chapter in our church's life."

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The trial of a United Methodist Church (UMC) minister who performed a same-sex marriage ceremony has been halted by a bishop before it began. Meanwhile, a retired UMC bishop may face a trial of his own for a similar ceremony.

Bishop Martin McLee of New York committed this week to stopping all such trials in his region. The New York Timeshas the details.

Meanwhile, Religion News Service reports on the latest (and highest-ranking) dissident to potentially face punishment, and assesses how geography is shaping the "emerging dynamic that allows some pastors in the country's second-largest Protestant denomination to skirt rules banning clergy from performing same-sex wedding, while others risk costly church trials and the loss of clergy credentials."

"The just resolution provisions of the Book of Discipline are clear in voicing just resolution as the preferred response in Judicial Administration," McLee wrote in a statement. "Church ...

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