Pughtown, Pa.
The United Methodist Church last week defrocked a Pennsylvania minister for being a self-avowed lesbian. Beth Stroud, 34, told her congregation last year that her walk with Christ compelled her to tell the truth about her committed lesbian relationship, whatever price truthfulness requires. A church rule bars practicing homosexuals from the ministry, but no one had been expelled over the issue since 1987. Methodist leaders promised a crackdown after a March trial cleared a lesbian minister in Washington. A conservative church leader called Strouds conviction a very positive declaration that church law will be upheld. But Stroud said it changed nothing. God is still going to call qualified gay and lesbian people into ministry, she said.
