A jury of 13 clergy members in eastern Pennsylvania convicted a fellow pastor of violating church law by living in a lesbian relationship and ordered her to be stripped of her authority, The New York Times reported. The ruling is evidence of the United Methodist Church's efforts to tighten rules banning 'self-avowed, practicing homosexuals' from the ministry. This step gained greater urgency after the jury in a trial in Bothell, Wash., last March cleared another lesbian minister of breaking church law.
At the trial in Pughtown, Pa., the jury voted 12 to 1 against the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud, the associate pastor at Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown, after which the group voted 7 to 6 to remove her from the ministry. Stroud has 30 days to file an appeal.
Stroud, 34, was the first Methodist minister to be defrocked for her being in a lesbian relationship since a New Hampshire ecclesiastical court ruled against the Rev. Rose Mary Denman in 1987. Stroud came out to her congregation in a sermon more than a year ago, saying she lived in a committed relationship with her partner, Chris Paige.
Because bishops have to operate under stricter rules, Stroud had said before the trial that she expected to be convicted. The pastor of her church and others, including the prosecutor in the trial, praised her abilities as a minister. Her congregation had earlier said if she were defrocked, it would keep her on as a lay pastor to continue her youth ministry. But she would no longer be able to celebrate baptisms, weddings, or communion.
'Of course, I'm disappointed with the verdict, but I do have a very deep sense of peace,' Stroud said in a telephone interview to the Times. 'God is still going to call qualified gay and lesbian people into ministry at our church and other denominations.'
Before the trial, many individuals and organizations expressed their support of Stroud, including Chicago's United Church of Rogers Park. The church collected an offering for Stroud's legal fund, prayed for her, and works to alter United Methodist laws that are at odds with being loving and open.