Gay ministers come out, criticize Methodist Church for homophobia

News 2006-04-21 Gay ministers come out, criticize Methodist Church for homophobia 75 Methodist ministers come out A week before the United Methodist Church's Judici

A week before the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council is set to meet, 75 gay ministers have outed themselves in a letter, stating that the church's "current policy of homophobia" hurts not just gay clergy but the church itself. The letter reads, "The UMC's official policy has pushed us, as well as our families, into closets of fear and isolation."

Last year the church defrocked the Reverend Beth Stroud for revealing that she is in a lesbian relationship. The United Methodist Judicial Council also recently reinstated a pastor who had been suspended for not allowing a gay man to join his congregation.

The ministers write, "We are not deceitful people, but the church has given us no choice." Beginning this Wednesday the council is scheduled to meet in Overland Park, Kan., a Kansas City suburb. (Sirius OutQ News)

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