Lesbian cleric awaits church verdict

By Gene Johnson
Associated Press

The Rev. Karen Dammann, right, and her partner of nine years, Meredith Savage, attend the trial. They married in Portland, Ore., last week and have a 5-year-old son. Associated Press

"We need to be careful about creating rules that exclude people," the Rev. Robert C. Ward said in closing arguments at the Rev. Karen Dammann's trial.

"You are faced with a choice to make love practical, to make love plain, and to do what is right," he told the jury of 13 pastors. Jury deliberations began later in the day and will resume deliberations today, said Bishop William Boyd Grove, who is presiding over the trial.

Nine votes are needed for conviction, which could cost Dammann her ministry.

The Rev. James C. Finkbeiner, counsel for the United Methodist Church, said Dammann has declared herself as a practicing lesbian. That is all the jury needs to find her guilty, he said, telling the jury: "The law of the church is not on trial."

Dammann, 47, has been charged with "practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible to Christian teachings." Church law prohibits ordination of self-avowed, practicing homosexuals, although the church's social principles support gay rights.

"Clearly the jury has to look at this prohibition and decide if it's consistent with the rest of our Methodist rules and with the Bible," Dammann's private lawyer, Lindsay Thompson, said earlier this week.

Dammann, who had sent a letter to church officials acknowledging her sexual orientation three years ago, did not testify during the three-day trial held at a church in this Seattle suburb.

Dammann, who is on leave as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg, 95 miles east of Seattle, said during a break in the trial: "God called me into ordained ministry and I just can't believe that God makes a mistake."

The trial is the first against a homosexual pastor in the denomination since 1987, when the credentials of the Rev. Rose Mary Denman of New Hampshire were revoked.