“It feels like an opportunity to bring reconciliation to the whole United Methodist Church and to continue to be a voice for gay and lesbian people,” ‘Reconciliation’ can mean a number of things including pressing full steam ahead with your agenda and/or litigation against those who oppose you.

This will merely feed her martyr complex.

To contradict Wesley (ironic, since these are Methodists), apart from regeneration, she is probably incapable of even considering for a moment that she might be wrong.

Maybe the UMC officials are trying to be charitable, letting someone infiltrate their organization, contradict the faith she avowed to uphold, and then spit in their face when called on it. But her behavior isn’t the only thing to take into account. She also has a flock she is supposedly pastoring, doesn’t she?

And separately, how she can be openly in violation of the Book of Discipline (living openly as a homosexual) and then be found not guilty of it is also odd. Any UMCers care to explain?

Quite a little rebel, our Ms DeLong. Once she said she would not sign the paper, then they should have defrocked her right then.

Of course she will do it – i.e. marry a same-sex couple. She’s as much as admitted it. Now the question is, what will the Methodists do when she violats that protocol again?

Almost forgot the most revolting part:

It feels like an opportunity to bring reconciliation to the whole United Methodist Church and to continue to be a voice for gay and lesbian people,

As if the main purpose of God’s church is to “be a voice” for your pet political cause. I’d say if the most important principle in your life is your sexual urges and not a love of God and his word, you are probably not qualified to be a pastor.

paper outlining new ways to better resolve issues that harm the clergy covenant

They are a) inviting her to criticize how they handled this, and b) implying that her opinions are of interest. Very poorly handled. They are already infiltrated.

Ooh, if she does it again they’ll slap the other hand! Terrifying! This story has it all, including the term “covenant,” which makes everything all right.

Be off! Or we shall taunt you again!

@Katherine,

“Part of her punishment is to write and present a paper … if she were to break Church rules again and marry another same-sex couple, she could face even stiffer penalties.”

Oh no! Does he mean they might require her to write a book the next time? Have they no mercy?

Keith Töpfer

@Smurf Breath,

You wrote:

how she can be openly in violation of the Book of Discipline (living openly as a homosexual) and then be found not guilty of it is also odd. Any UMCers care to explain?

I believe that is a situation that, to use a somewhat obsolete expression, would beggar explanation.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Does he mean they might require her to write a book the next time?

I’m sure a book deal is in the works. No need for the Methodist Church to make her write it.

***NO ONE*** EXPECTS THE 20 DAY METHODIST SUSPENSION!!!

Maybe this will work

http://www.addletters.com/pictures/bart-simpson-generator/1319204.htm

This web sites preoccupation with sexual behaviors, especially homosexual behaviors, leads one to suppose there are past or present issues in those areas by many of the commentators
Criticism of others is easier than self examination.

And why are you here, John, in that case?

Who precisely is obsessed with homosexual behaviors is quite clear. You are either a total idiot, John, or a liar who thinks you are talking to idiots. In neither case are you worth engaging in serious discussion.

Your attempt at re-direction only demonstrates again the fundamentally disordered nature of the homosexualist argument. Keep it up: show us how sick you really are.

John, sometimes the only comment one can make on bizarre things is to laugh at them. Loud. Long. And people constantly provide great material no one could make up.. Particularly liberal churches. They are never, ever, so pious as when they are making asses of themselves.

Bet she is SCARED witless!!!

Oh John!!!! Thats weak!!!!!

If I were a Methodist, I’d be outraged. Especially given that she has shown no repentance or agreement not to perform further gay “marriages”, that sentence is a joke.

William Shakespeare wrote it so well- The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

“And separately, how she can be openly in violation of the Book of Discipline (living openly as a homosexual) and then be found not guilty of it is also odd.”

Smurf Breath, “GetReligion” has a good post on this very subject: a local paper covered the story, and it explains how she was not convicted on this charge:

http://www.getreligion.org/2011/06/all-the-details-that-matter/

“Though DeLong, 44, does not dispute the facts of the case, her counsel, the Rev. Scott Campbell, said the evidence does not prove she ever performed homosexual acts and therefore cannot be found guilty of being a self-proclaimed “practicing” homosexual.

“What we will contest vigorously is that Amy ever self-avowed anything about what happens in the privacy of her relationship with (her partner) to a bishop or a district superintendent or any official body of the church,” Campbell said in his opening statement.”

I admit, I did wonder about that part myself, but it looks like her ‘lawyer’ (if we can call him that in these circumstances?) claimed that sure, she was an admitted lesbian, and yes, she had been living with her girlfriend for sixteen years, but nobody ever said that they were having sex and so you just don’t know what they were doing in private. And if you haven’t proof that they were not being celibate, you can’t convict her.

Fuinseoig, thanks. In other words, “I didn’t inhale”. The UMC needed to hire a private investigator because they assumed that an ordained minister would have an ounce of integrity (As Otter might say “Hey UMC, stop worrying. You effed up. You trusted her”).

I wondered if BXVI was perhaps being too strict to forbid “celibate” homosexuals as clergy, but now I see the wisdom for such measures. If you didn’t they’d just pull this stunt.

If this were any employment other than a church, this lady would be fired for insubordination.

This “stunt” is very similar to the one currently in use in the Church of England.

You have more than enough time to begin to arrange amicable divorce terms.

Why should Christians arrange an “amicable divorce” with non-Christians?

Better that the Methodist denomination destroys itself through legal action than the heretic false “church” of liberalism continues on!

The UMC is already destroying itself. Their own statistics show a loss of over 2.5mm people since 1970. No huge individual drops, though the charade that this trial was may accelerate that. About 1% decline per year, like clockwork. Just the slow, soft, steady suicide of liberal denominations.

Interesting stats, Tom, because the Episcopal Church began declining in the 70s at half a percent per year, went to about 1% per year in the 80s, 1.5% in the 90s, and about 2% since 2000. That’s roughly, of course, and doesn’t account for the group leavings – parishes and dioceses – in the past few years.

“William Shakespeare wrote it so well- The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I think you meant to quote Pee Wee Herman.. “I’m rubber, you’re glue..” (don’t forget to stick out your tongue at the end.. that really drives home your ..um.. point(?)

No I meant to quote Shakespeare. I have observed that many people vilify in others that in which they are personally conflicted

Actually, I think you ran of bogus science to peddle, so you turned to bogus arguments.

“Villify”? Really! Pathetic!