Methodist Council OKs Trans Pastor

By Seth Hemmelgarn
Bay Area Reporter
[San Francisco's leading LGBT newspaper]
[Reprinted with permission]

San Francisco -- November 1, 2007

United Methodist Church leaders, meeting as the Judicial Council in San Francisco, decided Saturday, October 27 that transgender pastors are entitled to church appointments. They also did not dispute domestic partners of lay church employees receiving health benefits, since the coverage is paid for by the employees.

The decisions were made public Tuesday, October 30. In a statement issued after the decision, the Reverend Drew Phoenix, a transgender pastor from Baltimore, said, "I celebrate this historic day in our denomination. The Judicial Council's decision is a very important first step in opening the doors of our churches to the transgender community."

The status of Phoenix – formerly the Reverend Ann Gordon – had been called into question after Bishop John Schol reappointed him. It was Phoenix's case the council was deciding.

The church bars gays and lesbians who are not celibate from being pastors.

The nine-member Judicial Council, which acts as a Supreme Court for the church, met Wednesday, October 24 through Saturday, October 27 at the Fisherman's Wharf Hilton.

The cases the council deliberated originated from churches across the country. The council did not comment further.

"The council, like most judicial bodies, does not comment on its opinions. They speak for themselves," stated Keith D. Boyette, the council's secretary, in an e-mail.

The nine-member council includes Dr. James Holsinger Jr., the council's president and President Bush's nominee to be the next surgeon general.

Holsinger, however, did not attend the meeting. He said in a statement, "I have become concerned that my nomination to serve the United States as its next surgeon general could become an unnecessary and unproductive distraction."

He has been criticized for being one of the council members with an anti-LGBT stance. His surgeon general nomination has faced stiff opposition, especially from the LGBT community, and has been questioned by many in the U.S. Senate.

Holsinger, along with two other council members who were absent, did not vote on the decisions. The council also voted on several non-LGBT matters.

In its decision on transgender pastors, the council stated, "The adjective placed in front of the noun 'clergyperson' does not matter." The council also found no need to treat transgender name changes different from other name changes.

The council had also been asked to determine how much campus ministries should reach out to LGBT students and how welcoming the church should be of LGBT families.

In regards to campus ministries, the council sent the case back to the conference from which it originated, since the conference had not yet fully reviewed the case. The council expects to decide the case in 60 days.

In the case of LGBT families, the council determined the issue was not within its jurisdiction, based on what appears to be a technicality.

The first day the council met, Reconciling Witness, a group formed specifically around the council's meeting, held a worship service at Justin Herman Plaza to help demand full inclusion of LGBT people in the church. Members followed the service with a candlelight march up the Embarcadero to the Hilton.

At least 60 people attended the service, and they were diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, reflecting the church's motto: "Open hearts, open minds, open doors."

The Reverend Troy Plummer is executive director of the national Reconciling Ministries Network, which has a mission similar to Reconciling Witness. Plummer took part in the worship service and march, and said the church would do well to heed its own motto.

"If the church doesn't pay attention now, we're going to cease to be important," Plummer, who is gay, said. "Our young people will stop coming."

On Thursday, October 25, there was a transgender worship service in a suite near the room where the council was meeting. Another service organized by seminary students from Berkeley's Pacific School of Religion was held on Friday, October 26. People from the LGBT community and the Judicial Council sometimes encountered each other at the hotel, but there were no formal meetings and it appeared the interactions were friendly. Plummer said that council members typically remain silent about what they discuss in their meetings until they release their decisions publicly.

He said there are more than 8 million people in the United Methodist Church nationwide. Plummer was unsure of how many are in the Bay Area, but noted there are several congregations in the area that are LGBT-friendly, including San Francisco's Glide Memorial and Bethany United Methodist churches.

Five out of the nine judicial council members will be up for election, Plummer said. Elections will be held at the church's next general conference in April in Fort Worth, Texas. He said the people up for re-election are people who have voted against LGBT issues in the past, including Holsinger. The term for the council is eight years. Plummer said people are being organized to support LGBT issues as the April conference approaches.

Holsinger, as was previously reported, helped found a church in Lexington, Kentucky that operates an "ex-gay" ministry. He also wrote "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality," a report submitted to the church's Committee to Study Homosexuality in 1991. The report mainly focuses on numbers that show high rates of sexually transmitted diseases among gay men.

Holsinger also helped remove Philadelphia's openly lesbian Reverend Irene "Beth" Stroud from her post. More recently, he agreed with others on the council that one pastor had been within his rights to keep a non-celibate gay man from being a member of the church.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For more information, visit Reconciling Ministries at www.rmnetwork.org, or the United Methodist Church at www.umc.org.