By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: December 19, 2013
The United Methodist Church on Thursday defrocked a Pennsylvania pastor who officiated at his son’s same-sex wedding six years ago and refused to agree not to perform other gay marriages.
Matt Rourke/Associated Press
The Rev. Frank Schaefer and his wife Brigitte on Thursday left a meeting with officials of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church in Lebanon, Pa.
The pastor, the Rev. Frank Schaefer, who had been at the Zion United Methodist Church of Ionain Lebanon, Pa., told church officials that he was unable to follow the denomination’s code of laws because it discriminated against gays and lesbians. Church doctrine forbids same-sex marriage and the ordination of homosexuals, and teaches that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
Bishop Peggy Johnson, who leads nearly 900 United Methodist churches in Pennsylvania, said in a statement that Mr. Schaefer had been defrocked.
“He no longer holds the ministerial office in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference by virtue of his decision,” Bishop Johnson said in the statement, according to Reuters. “Rev. Schaefer met with the board of ordained ministry today and declared that he is not willing or able to uphold the laws of the Book of Discipline in its entirety in the future as required by the trial court’s verdict.”
“When asked to surrender his credentials as required by the verdict, he refused to do so,” the statement added. “Therefore, because of his decision, the board was compelled by the jury’s decision to deem his credentials surrendered.”
In 2007, Mr. Schaefer performed a wedding for his son in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal. A member of Mr. Schaefer’s congregation later reported the wedding to church authorities, and the pastor was found guilty last month of violating church law and given a 30-day suspension.
Mr. Schaefer had until Thursday to agree to abide by the United Methodist Book of Discipline, the church’s rules and doctrine.
Mr. Schaefer could not be reached for comment Thursday, but at a news conference in Philadelphia earlier this week, he said: “I cannot uphold those discriminatory laws and the language in the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline that is hurtful and harmful to our homosexual brothers and sisters in the church.”
In a note posted on her blog this week, Bishop Johnson acknowledged that portions of the Book of Discipline were biased.
“Several statements in our Book of Discipline are discriminatory (forbidding ordination of homosexual persons, forbidding the performing of same-gender marriages and considering the practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching),” she wrote.
Those prohibitions, Bishop Johnson continued, taken together with the church’s message of inclusion, “has led to confusion by many from the outside of the church wondering how we can talk out of two sides of our mouth.”
She assured readers however, that “our L.G.B.T. sisters and brothers are of sacred worth regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting.
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