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Why do pro-lifers go to federal
prison, but sodomites get the equivalent of a parking ticket?
Report for March 20, 2004
The Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act
contains harsh penalties, including incarceration, for pro-lifers who sit
in front of abortion clinic doors to save innocent, unborn children from
being butchered by abortionists. The man or woman who interposes in such a
way in an attempt to save innocent human life is practically guaranteed
federal charges and some time in prison. FACE also makes it a federal
crime to block the entrance of a church. Yet sodomites from the group
Soulforce block church doors with impunity and never face anything more
than a slap on the wrist. The article below contains yet another account
of such a blockade. Other press accounts of the incident report that the
blockers were simply ticketed and released.
Methodists Put Minister on Trial for Declaring Herself a
Lesbian
by Laurie Goodstein, New York Times
March 18, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/national/18MINI.html?ex
=1080190800&en=b348ee7f7acd5374&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
OTHELL, Wash., March 17 - The Rev. Karen Dammann, a United Methodist
minister, went on trial in a church here on Wednesday for openly declaring
that she is in a lesbian relationship.
The judge is a retired bishop, the jurors 13 of her fellow ministers. She
is charged with violating church law by living in a homosexual
relationship, which United Methodist Church law says is "incompatible
with Christian teachings."
But this is a church at war with itself, enforcing a law that many of its
own clerics and members here say they find immoral and un-Christian. Ms.
Dammann's defense lawyer said in opening arguments that he would use
Scripture and the church's own Book of Discipline to argue that her
prosecution is at odds with the church's teaching and heritage.
The lawyer, the Rev. Robert C. Ward, a retired minister from Tacoma, said:
"Karen has chosen not to live the lie. She has invited the United
Methodist Church to come out of the closet with her and live a life of
open honesty."
When a grim Ms. Dammann arrived at the church just northeast of Seattle on
Wednesday with her partner and their young son at her side, she was hugged
by supportive clergy members, praised by the bishop who had pressed the
charges against her and hailed as a hero by dozens of hymn-singing
protesters who made a show of blocking the door of the church to prevent
the trial from going forward.
Thirty-three protesters were politely arrested and put on a bus while two
men shouted that homosexuality is a sin that God will punish.
The trial poses a dilemma for the Methodist Church in the Pacific
Northwest region, which has a more liberal stance on homosexuality than
many other regions of the church. Two times in the last four years, clergy
panels here decided to dismiss the charges against Ms. Dammann. Yet, this
trial is going ahead on the insistence of the church's Judicial Council,
the equivalent of its Supreme Court.
Bishop Elias Galvan, who is in charge of the Pacific Northwest region,
brought the initial charges against Ms. Dammann, for which he portrayed
himself as a regretful participant. "She is a respected member of our
conference and has done good ministry, and so this is a painful experience
for all of us, including me," Bishop Galvan said. "My role as
bishop is to make sure that the Book of Discipline, the church law, is
applied."
Just as the battle over gay marriage in the secular world has moved to the
courts, so too has the Methodist Church resorted to ecclesiastical trials
to enforce church law over homosexuality.
The 13 jurors were chosen in a closed session Wednesday. Nine votes are
needed to convict. If Ms. Dammann is found guilty, the same jury will
decide the penalty. It could be as lenient as putting a disciplinary
letter in her personnel file, or as severe as ordering that she be
defrocked or even excommunicated.
Bishop William Boyd Grove, who is retired and serving as judge, opened the
trial with a prayer and said, "This small gathering in this room is a
microcosm of the United Methodist Church in its pain, in its yearning for
healing, for grace and for direction."
The prosecutor, the Rev. James C. Finkbeiner, a retired minister from Port
Townsend, warned jurors not to succumb to the defense strategy to put
church law and theology on trial. He said that Ms. Dammann, by her own
written admissions to her bishop and public statements to church
tribunals, acknowledged that she had broken church law banning practicing
gays from the ministry.
The United Methodist Church - the nation's second-largest Protestant
denomination, with about 8.3 million members - has remained so torn over
homosexuality that it has argued over its stance at every quadrennial
meeting for the last 32 years. Based on previous votes at the conventions,
it appears that about two-thirds of church members are opposed to
acceptance of homosexuality, while about one-third are in favor, church
experts on both sides of the divide agreed.
Methodist Church rules forbid "self-avowed practicing
homosexuals" from serving as ministers, a position that will most
likely be debated again when church members gather for their quadrennial
convention in Pittsburgh in April.
Mark Tooley, director of the United Methodist project at the Institute on
Religion and Democracy, a conservative group that watches mainline
Protestant denominations in the United States, said, "A strong
majority of members of the denomination would say that Karen Dammann has a
right to her point of view, but if she can't with integrity uphold the
church's teaching, then she should step aside."
Mr. Tooley said that the Pacific Northwest region not only was out of step
with the majority of the church, but also was part of a liberal Western
jurisdiction that is losing members while the more conservative
Southeastern and overseas regions are growing.
"I suspect that homosexuality will be a point of contention for at
least the next two decades," he said. "However, those of us on
the traditional side are at least hopeful that in a demographic sense, the
church is going in our direction."
This is not the first such trial in the church. In 1987, Rose Mary Denman,
a Methodist minister in New Hampshire, was tried for declaring herself a
lesbian, found guilty and defrocked. At least two ministers have been
tried for performing gay unions.
One of those, Jimmy Creech, a minister in Nebraska who was defrocked in
1999 for officiating at a ceremony for two lesbians, was a leader of the
protest at the church here on Wednesday.
"The church has become even more restrictive and legalistic since I
was tried," Mr. Creech said in an interview, just before the police
arrested him and the other protesters. "We are moving in the
direction of becoming less welcoming."
Conservative and liberal church experts on both sides of the divide agree
that the Methodist Church, like others, has many gay clergy members, some
who are open with their congregations about their life, and others who do
not mention it. The difference here is that Ms. Dammann decided to come
forward and her bishop decided to turn her in.
"It's a big deal at any point when a church puts one of its ministers
on trial," said Mary Ann Tolbert, executive director of the Center
for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School
of Religion. "In this case, you're putting someone on trial basically
because she was honest about who she is."
Ms. Tolbert, a professor of biblical studies, testified as a defense
witness on Wednesday.
Ms. Dammann knew she was courting church discipline when, on Valentine's
Day in 2001, she sent a letter informing her bishop that she was
"living in a partnered, covenanted, homosexual relationship."
She revealed that she had taken lifetime vows in a sacred union ceremony
and that her partner had given birth to a son they were raising together.
Lying to her church, she wrote to her bishop, had become too painful.
"It was awful," Ms. Dammann said in an interview a few days
before the trial began. "I went off and had the experience of
committing my life to someone in front of our friends, and coming back and
not telling anybody in my congregation.
"I didn't want to subject myself, my partner or our child to the
closet," said Ms. Dammann, who is 47, was ordained a minister 10
years ago and said she had worked for the church since she was 19. "I
needed to be very open about it. I knew that writing the letter would take
it out of my hands completely, but I was willing to take that risk."
Ms. Dammann graduated from the Pacific School of Religion, in Berkeley,
Calif., in 1992 and served in the Army Chaplaincy Corps. She said she did
not consider herself to be gay until she met her partner after her Army
service in 1996.
Last week, Ms. Dammann and her partner, Meredith Savage, 44, a wetlands
biologist, drove to Portland to get a marriage license. She said they were
married in a gay bar that had been converted to a chapel. Their son served
as ring bearer.
Ms. Dammann is on leave from the church she is serving in Washington,
Ellensburg United Methodist. Members of the church came to the trial to
support her. One of them, Dodie Haight, said most of the members were
fully behind her.
"She's gifted as a minister," Ms. Haight said. "She
demonstrates a great calling from God. It is the denomination that's
putting her on trial, not our congregation."
Homo-Fascism
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