Church fires lesbian

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 Stroud’s 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.