General Category > Science, Technology and Knowledge

United Methodists try Pa. pastor over gay marriage

(1/2) > >>

Cincinnatus:

--- Quote ---A United Methodist minister who officiated at his son's same-sex wedding pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he broke his pastoral vows.

The Rev. Frank Schaefer of Lebanon entered his plea at the beginning of a high-profile church trial in southeastern Pennsylvania that is rekindling debate over the denomination's policy on gay marriage.

Schaefer could face punishment ranging from a reprimand to losing his minister's credentials if a jury composed of fellow Methodist clergy convicts him of breaking church law that bans clergy from performing same-sex weddings.

The church's attorney, the Rev. Christopher Fisher, told the 13-member jury in his opening statement that Schaefer clearly violated the Methodist Book of Discipline by presiding over the 2007 ceremony in Massachusetts. He said the complainant — a member of Schaefer's congregation — was dismayed and shocked when he learned of the ceremony earlier this year.

Schaefer blessed a union that has been "declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teaching," said Fisher, echoing the language of the Methodists' book of law and doctrine.

Schaefer's attorney, the Rev. Robert Coombe, told the jury that Schaefer had simply extended God's love to his son.

"It's important to him to practice in his family what he preached to his congregation," Coombe said. "He did this wedding as an act of love and not as an act of rebellion."
--- End quote ---

http://www.charter.net/news/read/category/Top%20News/article/ap-pa_pastor_facing_church_trial_over_gay_m-ap-2

EC:
Lebanon Daily News are live blogging it: http://www.ldnews.com/local/ci_24544249/live-blog-lebanon-pastor-frank-schaefer-facing-church

jmyrlefuller:
Wow, the UMC is actually making a stand. With all the social justice stuff that place has been pushing lately I am very surprised.

First off, having one's own mother or father administer a legally binding vow of marriage is kind of sketchy in itself, given the power of parental pressure.

Second, admonishment in the name of the Lord is love. Love is not always granting every wish, especially ones that give into sin... and before people start bellyaching about "love," same-sex attraction and opposite-sex attraction are not equivalent. Even the pride groups know it (see the joke "asking who's the man in a lesbian couple is like asking which chopstick is the fork"), except when they want to force the SSM agenda. While, thanks to Anthony Kennedy and his ilk on the Supreme Court, we are no longer able to outlaw the dangerous act of sodomy, it is still a sin, and allowing two men to marry is enabling it. (Why is it dangerous? Disease, mainly-- the act of sodomy injects bodily fluids into the intestines and breaks blood vessels.) I know most fathers are eager to see their son marry and be happy, but to settle for a same-sex abomination is a perversion of God's love.

mountaineer:
I'm shocked the UMC is standing for anything remotely biblical (just as I would with my own denomination, the PCUSA).

truth_seeker:
When I was an adolescent, our married pastor ran off with my father's married secretary.

These damn churches have been full of sinners, for the longest time.



 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page