Judicial Council rules against lesbian bishop

A few days ago I wrote about the case before the United Methodist Judicial Council about bishop Karen Oliveto, who is in a same-sex marriage. On Friday the JC issued its ruling.

It isn’t good.

The ruling says that consecrating a lesbian bishop violated church law and those who did the consecrating were in violation of their “commitment to abide by and uphold the church’s definition of marriage and stance on homosexuality.”

As part of its ruling the JC rejected arguments made by Richard Marsh, the counsel for Oliveto. He had argued that a marriage license does not imply a “practicing” homosexual, which is defined as genital sex. The JC blasted that argument. A marriage license does indeed mean “practicing.”

For the moment Oliveto remains “in good standing.” The ruling does not automatically remove her as bishop or force her into retirement.

From what I have figured out, this ruling means it is appropriate and legal to have a complaint filed against Oliveto. If nobody in the Western Jurisdiction does, the president or secretary of the WJ college of bishops must. The complaint would be that she violated denomination law, with the possibility of facing a church trial.

But, lately, bishops have been reluctant to hold trials, even reluctant to hand out punishment for violating church laws on homosexuality.

So the WJ faces a dilemma. The JC has clearly said that a lesbian bishop is Not Good. A lesbian bishop is also pretty high profile. It is one thing to get a complaint about a local gay pastor and the local bishop saying, “We’ve analyzed the evidence and concluded there need not be any trial, removal, or punishment.” It is quite another to say that about a lesbian bishop.

Even so, Rob Renfroe, president of Good News, an organization pushing the denomination in a conservative direction, said, “We don’t have any hope — because of its past track record — that the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops will address this either swiftly or with integrity.”

Both sides agree that the ruling shows the denomination is broken and that the work of the Commission on a Way Forward becomes all the more important. This commission is searching for a way to keep the denomination together. Their eventual plan is to be voted on in February 2019.

Another part of the ruling is that it is appropriate and legal to file a complaint against the bishops who performed the consecration service for Oliveto. Apparently, they should have known better and rejected Oliveto. I think it also means the Jurisdiction delegates who voted for her are not to be charged. But will these bishops be charged? All of them? The jurisdiction president?

I found the full text of the JC ruling here. In it I learned that being in a same-sex marriage while being a bishop is not considered immoral. However, by church law, it is illegal. This strikes down the argument that the immorality makes it illegal. It is illegal because the Book of Discipline says it is illegal.

In other cases heard last week two are important to us. First, regions in New York and Illinois had adopted policies saying they would not ask if a candidate to be a pastor was lesbian or gay and would ignore such declarations from the candidates. The ruling from the JC is that those who evaluate candidates must to a “thorough” job. It seems not discovering if a candidate is lesbian or gay means the evaluation wasn’t thorough.

In the second case the Northeastern Jurisdiction passed a resolution calling for its college of bishops to “Stop the Trials,” to no longer hold church trials for pastors accused of being gay or lesbian or accused of officiating at same-sex weddings. But the JC said a jurisdiction cannot pass a resolutions that “encourage a violation of church law or discourage the enforcement of church law.”