For her traditional beliefs, she plays politics in pews

Patricia Miller is a devoted Methodist. She's also devoted to keeping the denomination from relaxing its view on homosexuality.

As an old tourism slogan attests, "there's more than corn in Indiana."

There's also the Indy 500, two Big Ten schools and lots of old-time religion.

All of which brings us to Patricia L. Miller, a tall, white-haired, 67-year-old hammer of a woman. Miller's bio: Indiana University graduate, then nurse, then stay-at-home mom turned GOP state senator.

But perhaps more important to her, Miller is a Methodist "down to the marrow in her bones," as her secretary put it.

The religious realm is where she has launched her toughest campaign, one bigger than the rising property taxes and all the cornfields of Indiana.

She wants to stop the acceptance of homosexuality in the United Methodist Church, the nation's third-largest denomination with 8.3-million members. The way she sees it, those Methodists who refuse to obey traditional doctrine should leave the denomination.

Elected representatives are gathered in Pittsburgh for a 10-day General Conference where they decide, change and uphold church laws. Miller is there, partly as a voting delegate, partly as the executive director of the Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church, a national organization intent on turning the tide against spiritual liberalism.

Technically, it's a Methodist debate. But Methodist could be substituted with Episcopalian or Lutheran or Presbyterian. All are mainline denominations caught between traditional beliefs and changing attitudes toward same-sex marriage and gay clergy.

Last month a Washington state Methodist pastor was acquitted in a church trial of charges that she broke Methodist law by being openly gay. The verdict set up this week's conference confrontation.

Miller is equipped for the fight. In more than 20 years in government, she has never lost an election. And when it comes to highly organized religion, politics at the statehouse are not much different from politics in God's house.

The Confessing Movement has been unusually busy since March when the Rev. Karen Dammann, the lesbian pastor in Washington, was found not guilty.

Homosexuals cheered the outcome as a step toward acceptance in Christianity. But the verdict was an equally galvanizing event for opponents. The church's Book of Discipline forbids "self-avowed" homosexuals from serving in ministry. Calls and e-mails to the 10-year-old Confessing Movement more than doubled.

It's a familiar scenario in Christendom.

After an openly gay man was consecrated bishop, Episcopalians around the country withheld their offerings from the national church.

Members of the Presbyterian Church USA have filed cases against clergy accused of ordaining and marrying homosexuals. The denomination is bracing for intense dialogue at its national meeting in June.

In 2001, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America began a study on sexuality and religion.

Methodists have debated homosexuality for years. Traditionalists such as Miller have remained the majority on related votes at General Conferences.

But liberal views have crept into Methodist churches, and 10 years ago Miller and her husband Kenneth thought about leaving the denomination. Some church leaders were saying homosexuality was okay. Others questioned whether Jesus was really the son of God, born of a virgin - basic Christian theology.

Miller took the "love the sinner, hate the sin" approach. She had dear homosexual friends. But she says same-gender sex is a sin according to the Bible; she couldn't condone it. "I think we do a disservice when we say, "Sin's okay. You do whatever you want. You don't have to live any special way as a Christian.' "

Miller began to see a dichotomy in her political and spiritual lives. She helped vote into law a bill that says Indiana won't allow same-sex unions and won't recognize them from other states. (That law is now being challenged in the Indiana Court of Appeals.)

Her vote could enforce the will of God in the secular world, she believed, but the same wasn't true in the church. "That was a real struggle," she said.

Kenneth Miller, a dentist and a member of the Gideons, a group that distributes Bibles around the world, also sensed the irony. With stamped New Testaments in hand, he had traveled to hotels, hospitals, colleges and prisons. But now even some fellow Methodists no longer believed his message.

The couple loved Methodism, though, having sat on church committees and boards and having reared their son and daughter in the faith. They decided to stay.

In 1996, Patricia Miller heard about the Confessing Movement, a national "renewal" group supported by private donations that now has more than 600,000 members. The movement was looking for an executive director. The Holy Spirit, Miller says, led her to apply.

Methodists angered over the Dammann trial are looking for leadership such as Miller's at the conference, which began Tuesday and runs through May 7. The event occurs every four years and is best described as a spiritual legislative session. This year, nearly 1,000 delegates elected to represent Methodist regions worldwide are considering about 1,400 proposals on everything from racial reconciliation to missions.

One proposal drafted by Good News, an evangelical renewal group for Methodists, is titled "Prohibit Promotion of the Acceptance of Homosexuality." The petition would prevent Methodist funds from being used to support gay groups or to promote tolerance for homosexuality.

There will be others concerning sexual orientation, Miller says. Church leaders, whom she declined to name, are working on amendments that she thinks could largely resolve the issue.

One solution, she said, would involve property. Ordinarily, a Methodist congregation owns its church building. A "trust clause" allows the denomination to take control of the property when a congregation breaks from the church. But the amendment would allow congregations that support homosexuality to leave the denomination and keep their buildings.

Secondly, pastors intent on supporting gays by performing same-sex unions could leave the church and take their pensions with them. Currently, only ministers who have served 35 years or are 62 are eligible to receive pensions.

This would not be a church split, Miller says.

"Separation says we divide the church in half - this is your part and this is your part and who gets the name and all that sort of thing. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about division."

The Rev. Troy Plummer, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, a gay rights organization for Methodists, has heard these proposals before. But his group has no interest in taking the "buyouts," as he called them.

"I think this is part of a conservative movement in the United Methodist Church," he said.

He's not a voting delegate like Miller, but said he would lobby for homosexual inclusion.

More than 100 petitions relate to sexual orientation, Plummer said. Many will be thrown out or combined with other petitions.

The Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, a Christian ethicist who counseled former President Bill Clinton, called the options "silly."

"Every now and then someone in the Confessing Movement or the Good News movement will imply that there needs to be a schism in the church or a division in the church," said Wogaman, who used to pastor a gay-affirming church in Washington, D.C. "That is very unMethodist."

The Confessing Movement, he said, "needs to lighten up."

Little chance of that.

"Some people say we can live under the same roof even though we disagree, but there are people that clearly must be very unhappy with the church because they can't abide by church law," Miller said. "They are being disobedient to church law and if they want to leave, we think we ought to make that possible for them to do that."

Before the conference, delegates from the Pacific Northwest region where Dammann was acquitted attempted what appeared to be damage control. They sent delegates a letter saying, in part:

"We write in the wake of the trial of the Rev. Karen Dammann, . . . longing to be known to you as brothers and sisters in Christ. ... As we meet in Pittsburgh, we hope you will invite us into conversation, not so much about the trial, as about Christ's will for his church."

As part of its plea for peace, the group planned to give its fellow delegates colorful paper cranes.

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