Methodist panel upholds anti-gay ruling

Methodist panel upholds anti-gay ruling

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The United Methodist Church's top court has refused to reconsider its ruling that a minister acted correctly when he refused church membership to a gay man, the church announced on Tuesday.

The nine-member Judicial Council was split on the matter, however, reflecting the continued divisions within many churches on the treatment of homosexuals in matters ranging from same-sex marriages to roles in the clergy.

The tribunal reaffirmed a decision made last October that the Rev. Edward Johnson of the South Hill, Virginia, United Methodist Church was within his rights for refusing to admit a homosexual man to church membership and should not have been suspended for doing so.

The earlier ruling said Johnson followed church law that gives the pastor-in-charge the right to decide who can be received into membership. It said he should be reinstated and given back pay to July 1, 2005, when he had been removed by his bishop.

The presiding bishop of the Virginia Conference, Charlene Kammerer, and the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Virginia Conference had asked the panel to reconsider its earlier ruling.

But in decisions posted on the church's Web site, the panel said no errors had occurred in the decision-making process and "we believe that reopening this matter, especially where no grounds have been demonstrated to do so, will further polarize the various parts of the church."

But some panel members who dissented from the ruling said in a separate opinion "Season after season, we hear the words of invitation to communion offered by the pastor/celebrant in the following words, 'Christ invites to his table ...' The invitation and the gift of Christ are extended by the pastor. . It is Christ's invitation, not ours."

Last year the same panel ordered a lesbian minister defrocked after she acknowledged her relationship with another woman, though a church trial in 2004 found a Seattle clergywoman, not guilty of "practices incompatible with Christian teaching," even though she was in a same-sex relationship.

The United Methodist Church, the third-largest U.S. denomination, has 8.25 million lay members and nearly 45,000 clergy in more than 35,000 local U.S. churches. It also has another 1.86 million members in 12 other countries.