wfn.org | Suspended pastor files appeal

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 13, 1999 News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-28-71BP{272}

NOTE:  A file photograph of the Rev. Greg Dell is available.

By United Methodist News Service

The Rev. Greg Dell is appealing the decision of a trial court that suspended
him, effective July 5, for performing a same-sex ceremony.

In March, the pastor of Broadway United Methodist Church in Chicago was
found guilty of disobedience to the order and discipline of the denomination
in a church trail. A panel of fellow clergy members imposed a penalty of
indefinite suspension unless Dell agrees to sign a pledge to never again
conduct such a ceremony.

The Rev. Larry Pickens, Dell's attorney and pastor of  Maple Park United
Methodist Church in Chicago, said an appeal was filed April 21 with Bishop
Jack Tuell, who presided over the trial. Tuell then forwarded the appeal to
the North Central Jurisdiction committee on appeals and to Bishop C. Joseph
Sprague, who leads the church's Chicago Area.

The constitution of the United Methodist Church states that the
denomination's jurisdictional conferences have the power "to appoint a
committee on appeals to hear and determine the appeal of a traveling
preacher of that jurisdiction from the decision of a trial committee." The
Rev. Philemon Tutus of the Detroit Annual (regional) Conference is chairman
of that committee. 

"We think the trial court did not apply the evidentiary standard of clear
and convincing evidence in relation to the verdict," Pickens told United
Methodist News Service in a May 13 interview. 

While Dell had not disputed his part in the ceremony, his "conviction" was
based on a charge of  disobedience to the church. Pickens explained that
when the trial court finished its deliberations, a statement was made that
it had difficulty determining whether Dell had been disobedient because what
constituted disobedience was not adequately defined by the church or by its
Book of Discipline. 

In the appeal, Pickens also asserted that "the penalty itself is
unconstitutional in that it's an indefinite penalty designed to extract a
pledge based on future action."

The attorney said the committee on appeals has 30 days, once it receives
notice of appeal, to give Dell a hearing date. That date can be within 120
days of the filing of the appeal. Pickens has requested a hearing date in
late July or mid-August.

"I think we would be asking that if there is a penalty, it would be time
already served," he said, anticipating that the hearing would take place
after Dell's suspension begins.

After July 5, Dell will become director of In All Things Charity, an
unofficial network of clergy members and others who support the full
inclusion of gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the life of the church.

Beyond the jurisdictional committee, the highest level to which an appeal
could go would be the Judicial Council, the denomination's supreme court.

According to the Book of Discipline, Paragraph 2615, "The Judicial Council
shall have power to review an opinion or decision of a committee on appeals
of a jurisdictional or central conference if it should appear that such
opinion or decision is at variance with the Book of Discipline, a prior
decision of the Judicial Council, or an opinion or decision of a committee
on appeals of another jurisdictional or central conference on a question of
Church law."

Last August, the Judicial Council declared that a prohibition in the United
Methodist Social Principles against the celebration of homosexual union
ceremonies had the effect of church law. That ruling was cited by the
prosecution during Dell's trial.

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