Frank Schaefer lost his job but not his voice.
Defrocked
by the United Methodist Church six months ago for officiating his son’s
same-sex wedding, Schaefer has gained a following among reformers who
want the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination to loosen its
policies on homosexuality.
He’s told his story dozens of times to
largely sympathetic audiences around the country: How his son came out
to him as a teenager who had contemplated suicide. How he hid the 2007
wedding from his conservative Pennsylvania congregation, fearing it
would sow division. How he finally decided — in the midst of his
high-profile church trial last fall — to become an outspoken advocate
for gay rights at a time when his denomination is bitterly divided over
the issue.
After his trial and conviction, "I thought I had lost
everything," recalled Schaefer, 52. "There was a moment of pain and
depression and the next thing I knew, I was catapulted . I have more
opportunities now than I ever did."
Except the right to call himself a Methodist minister.
"I
would like to get my credentials back," said Schaefer, who will appear
before a church panel in Baltimore this week to argue that his
punishment was illegal under church law. "I’m hoping for a
‘re-frocking.’"
In little more than six months, Schaefer has
become a public face of the movement to change church policy on
homosexuals. The Methodist church accepts gay and lesbian members but
rejects sex outside of heterosexual marriage as "incompatible with
Christian teaching." Openly gay people may not serve as clergy, and
ministers are forbidden from performing same-sex marriages.
The
issue has roiled the Methodist church for more than 40 years, but the
conflict between theological conservatives and liberals has intensified
recently. Hundreds of Methodist ministers have publicly rejected church
doctrine on homosexuality, while traditionalists say they have no right
to break church law just because they disagree with it. Some
conservative pastors are calling for a breakup of the denomination,
which has 12 million members worldwide, saying the split over gay
marriage is irreconcilable.
"The church is a little shell-shocked right now," Schaefer said.
Church
officials put the German-born preacher on trial in southeastern
Pennsylvania after one of his congregants in Lebanon filed a complaint
against him, accusing him of ignoring his pastoral vows by presiding
over his son’s ceremony in Massachusetts.
Schaefer could have
avoided the trial — and, after his conviction, kept his ordination — by
promising he wouldn’t perform another same-gender wedding. But he
refused, declaring he would officiate more gay marriages if asked.
His
stand galvanized gay rights activists within the church, and he’s
become a fixture on the lecture circuit. In between appearances,
Schaefer wrote a book, "Defrocked," that will be released later this
month by Chalice Press. A documentary film crew has been following him
around and a Philadelphia theater company is developing a play about
him.
But Schaefer still considers himself a country preacher, and
he wants another congregation to call his own. He will argue before a
nine-member Committee on Appeals on Friday that his defrocking was
improper because it was based on the assumption that he would break
church law in the future.
"His return from suspension cannot be
conditioned on his good behavior," said his clergy counsel, the Rev.
Scott Campbell. "You cannot penalize people for what they might do. The
penalty needs to be related to what he has done."
A decision by
the appeals panel is expected as early as Saturday. Campbell said it’s
likely the losing side will appeal to the Judicial Counsel, the
denomination’s highest court. At least three other Methodist pastors
have been tried for performing same-sex marriages, but none of their
cases made it to the high court.
Even if the Judicial Counsel
weighs in, though, the Schaefer case is unlikely to have broader
implications for a denomination so intractably divided, said the Rev.
Rob Renfroe, president of a theologically conservative Methodist
movement called Good News.
"We are in complete chaos right now,
and having the Judicial Counsel rule appropriately will not change the
chaos," he said. "It’s not going to stop progressives from breaking the
Book of Discipline, and it’s not going to lure traditionalists into any
false sense that this is taken care of."