On trial: A lesbian cleric or a lifestyle?

A Methodist minister faces charges in a rare church trial. Critics say more is at stake, and the church itself is divided.

BOTHELL, Wash. - All the trappings of a high-profile criminal trial were on display Wednesday in this town just outside Seattle: a barrage of media, protesters and police making arrests.

Except the courtroom is a United Methodist Church.

The lawyers are retired clergy; the judge a bishop. The prosecutor represents the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, the Methodist district that includes churches in Washington and parts of Idaho. And the defendant, or "respondent," is the Rev. Karen Dammann, 47, a popular Methodist pastor who is gay.

Officially, Dammann is charged with violating rules in the United Methodist Church's Book of Discipline, which forbids "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from serving in ministry. It is considered an egregious offense that could cost Dammann her ministry if convicted.

Unofficially, the church has put homosexuality on trial, gay activists say.

Earlier in the day, 33 members of Soulforce, a national interfaith gay rights group, were arrested outside the church, after locking arms to stop people from entering.

The trial, which opened Wednesday at Bothell United Methodist Church, is one more repercussion of an exploding cultural and religious war over gay rights. It has drawn national attention, partly due to the emergence of gay rights as a presidential campaign issue.

Last week, Dammann married her partner of nearly nine years, Meredith Savage, in Portland, Ore., where county officials began allowing gay marriages this month. President Bush, who is also Methodist, is leading a drive for a constitutional amendment to bar such marriages.

But on Wednesday, Dammann sat solemnly inside a church fellowship area turned courtroom flanked by Savage and her general counsel, the Rev. Robert C. Ward, who's acting as her attorney.

Bishop William Boyd Grove of Charleston, W.Va., acting as judge, lit a candle to signify that court was in session. The jury - 13 clergy and two alternates - looked on from cushioned chairs positioned on bleachers. About 200 people observed, including members from Dammann's church.

"Rev. Dammann, how do you plead?" Boyd asked. Dammann stood and said: "Not guilty, your honor."

The Rev. James Finkbeiner, a retired minister acting as general counsel for the church, led with opening arguments. The case, he said, was clear-cut.

He recounted the letter Dammann wrote to her bishop on Feb. 14, 2001, that sparked this lengthy legal battle in the nation's third-largest denomination, with 8.3-million members.

"I am living in a partnered, covenanted homosexual relationship," she wrote. "We have a son." (Savage gave birth to a boy five years ago; Dammann later adopted him.) Her admission has culminated in this rare and highly volatile legal proceeding.

He read from the Book of Discipline and charged jurors - many of whom know Dammann personally - not to be swayed by their own emotions or opinions about homosexuality. Nor should they be persuaded by defense tactics to argue biblical interpretations about homosexuality, he said.

"During this trial, there may be efforts made by highly respected United Methodists who have come from all over the country to direct our thoughts to theological arguments," Finkbeiner said. "In the end, no matter how much theological arguments we have, you must bring in a verdict based on the evidence. . . . You'll have no other recourse but to find her guilty."

Ward, also a retired minister, spoke for Dammann: "We seek to have you consider what it means for you to be faithful to the discipline as a whole, not to limit yourself to a legalistic interpretation of two or three (rules)," he said.

Over the next few days, the defense will call theologians and clergy who will vouch for Dammann's character and work in the ministry.

Ward intends to attack the church's policy on homosexuality, which amounts to "don't ask, don't tell," he said.

"Karen has chosen not to live the lie, and she's inviting the United Methodist Church to come out of the closet with her," he said.

Actual church trials are rare - but not unprecedented. In 1987, Rose Mary Denman, a lesbian from New Hampshire, lost her clergy credentials when a jury of Methodists found her guilty of violating church rules.

The Methodist Church considers trial a last resort. Typically, proceedings are private; the verdicts never see the light of day. But Dammann insisted on an open trial.

She has been an ordained United Methodist minister since 1994. In 1995, she realized she was gay, she told the Advocate in a 2001 interview. She met Savage and they began living together.

In 2001, Dammann was on family leave when she wrote a letter to Bishop Elias Galvan, now the church's star witness. She told him that she wanted to return to work openly as a lesbian.

The matter has been entangled in judicial committees for nearly three years. Galvan filed a complaint against Dammann, following orders from the church's Judicial Council. Two committees heard the case, but both the Western Jurisdiction Committee on Appeals and the Pacific Northwest Conference Committee on Investigation voted for dismissal of the charges.

Last October, the Judicial Council reversed the committee decisions, charging that members had failed to apply clear rules in the Book of Discipline. The case went back to the committee on investigation, which voted in January that the Pacific Northwest conference had grounds for a trial.

Dammann had been working at the First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg before she requested another family leave, which was effective March 1.

Several times during opening arguments, jurors pulled out Bibles and their own copies of the Book of Discipline, for counsel references. To convict, nine must vote guilty.

The church plans to call one witness.

Although the trial would ordinarily start with the church's case, Boyd called two defense witnesses who could be in town only one day. Both were theologians from Berkley, Calif., and familiar with Old and New Testament verses commonly referred to concerning homosexuality.

Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan said Scriptures in Genesis, Judges and Leviticus are often taken out of context and don't qualify homosexuality as sinful. Rather, he said, they refer to violence and wickedness.

Under cross-examination Finkbeiner asked if other theologians would come up with different interpretations.

"Certainly, there are people who will integrate texts differently," Kuan said.

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