aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, October 31, 2005

Methodist mistakes

I thought defrocking the lesbian minister was bad enough, but it turns out the Methodists think it’s fine to refuse gay people, who are allowed to worship, membership in the church. How Christian is that?

In the best-known of the cases decided yesterday, the Judicial Council removed from the ministry Irene Elizabeth Stroud, who told her Philadelphia congregation in 2003 that she was a lesbian in a long-term relationship with another woman.

But church experts said the most significant decision could prove to be the little-known case of the Rev. Edward Johnson, pastor of South Hill United Methodist Church in South Hill, Va. Mr. Johnson’s decision to keep an openly gay man from joining his congregation was upheld by the Judicial Council as the rightful exercise of his pastoral discretion. He had been suspended for a year without pay by fellow ministers in Virginia, but the Judicial Council ordered his regional leaders to find a new appointment for him.

We’re talking rural Virginia here. In rural Virginia “fellow ministers” suspended him.

I heard this story on the radio before the Rosa Parks story. It struck me that Rosa was expected to ride in the back of the bus. She could ride, just not equal with whites.

The Methodists now says gays can worship, just not equally with heterosexuals.