wfn.org | On eve of trial, Creech will renew vows for same-gender couples

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

Nov. 16, 1999    News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.  10-21-28-71B{614}

NOTE: For photographs and additional coverage of the trial, go to
www.umc.org/umns/99/nov/creech.htm on the World Wide Web.

By Dan Gangler*

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (UMNS) - In the soft light of a hotel ballroom, the Rev.
Jimmy Creech will renew tonight the April 24 union vows of Larry Ellis and
Jim Raymer.

The ceremony comes on the eve of Creech's trial for performing the same-sex
union for Ellis and Raymer last spring. The Nebraska Annual Conference has
charged Creech with violating "the order and discipline of the church" for
conducting such a ceremony as a United Methodist clergyman. Creech will
stand before a trial court, or jury, of fellow clergy members at Trinity
United Methodist Church in Grand Island.

"If I am found guilty by a trial court, then the order and discipline of the
United Methodist Church is in conflict with the Gospel," Creech said in a
prepared statement. "It is arrogance on the part of the church to elevate
some people's relationship with God, while denigrating that of others on the
basis of innate sexuality."

The re-enactment at the Holiday Inn Midtown Hotel will be part of a pretrial
demonstration of 100 volunteers from 20 states, organized by the Rev. Mel
White of Laguna Beach, Calif. White heads a national interfaith gay rights
network called Soulforce and is a minister of the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches.

After the re-enactment, other gay and lesbian couples are expected to step
forward at Creech's invitation and renew their vows.

Soulforce participants are following the ceremony with an around-the-clock
vigil for the duration of the trial. The vigil will be in front of Trinity
church, which is three miles north of the hotel, near downtown Grand Island.

The next day, Soulforce plans to "symbolically block" the church's entrance
two hours before the trial begins. White said he and his group will lock
arms for one minute on the steps of the church to prevent people from
entering. That is expected to be just long enough to get them arrested by
the police for civil disobedience. Members of the group will take turns
until all 100 are arrested.

Representatives from the five unofficial United Methodist caucus groups that
advocate for homosexual rights in the life of the denomination will be on
hand to support Creech. They include Affirmation: United Methodists for
Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns, CORNET (Covenant Relationship Network),
In All Things Charity, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the
Reconciling Congregations Program.

In a joint statement issued earlier this month from Chicago, the five-group
coalition said, "the trial's protest by the Rev. Mel White is an
understandable act of resistance and call to awareness."

Coalition representatives will attend the trial and "stand for the full
inclusion of all members of the United Methodist Church," but do not plan to
participate in Soulforce's civil disobedience.

"Our coalition's commitment is to work to correct the laws at the church's
General Conference 2000," the denomination's top legislative body meeting
May 2-12 in Cleveland, the group said.

The coalition's representatives will include the Rev. Greg Dell, who was
convicted March 29 in a church trial in Downers Grove, Ill., for performing
a same-sex union ceremony last year. He was suspended from his ministerial
appointment and now heads In All Things Charity, a network of United
Methodist clergy and laity who advocate the full inclusion of homosexuals in
the life of the church.

Organizations that strongly support the church's ban on same-sex union
ceremonies within the church also plan to attend and support their
positions.
 
The Confessing Movement, which crusades for orthodox Methodist beliefs,
plans to observe the trial through the eyes of its associate director, the
Rev. Riley Case, of Kokomo, Ind.

The Rev. James Heidinger II, president of the Good News evangelical
organization, plans to skip the trial. However, the Association of United
Methodist Evangelicals in Nebraska plan to begin reading Scripture and
praying at a school parking lot a half-block west of the church this
afternoon, according to the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. Members will
continue to pray during the trial, both inside and outside the church
building, according to the Rev. Kay Moyer of Utica, Neb., an organizer.

In anticipation of the trial, Grand Island Police, the Hall County Sheriff's
Department and Nebraska State Patrol officers are working together to be
prepared, according to the Grand Island Independent newspaper. Police Chief
Kyle Hetrick plans to barricade the church and monitor who comes and goes.
Demonstrators and supporters will be assigned specific areas. The three
streets bordering the area will be blocked off during the trial. Six
officers will be stationed inside the church, and six officers will be
positioned on the church's perimeter.

Police also plan to be present at the hotel during the re-enactment ceremony
and at the all-night vigil at the church.

The format of a church trial is similar to that of a secular court, with a
judge, jury, prosecution, defense, witnesses and evidence. Retired Bishop
William Boyd Grove of Charleston, W.Va., will act as judge. Thirty-five
Nebraska pastors have been called as possible jurors, and 13 of them will be
selected at the beginning of the trial proceedings. They will form the trial
court.

Bishop Grove has presided over two previous trials, but neither dealt with
homosexuality. 

The Rev. Steven Flader of Blair, Neb., will serve as the church's counsel.
He will be assisted by Stanley Goodwin, a United Methodist layman and
attorney from McCook, Neb. Flader will be the only church counsel who can
address the court.

Creech will act as his own defense, choosing neither a counsel nor assistant
counsel, although the church's Book of Discipline allows those. He has said
that he doesn't plan on calling any witnesses.

Creech underwent a church trial on similar charges in March 1998. He argued
then that the denomination's strictures against same-gender ceremonies did
not carry the weight of law, since they were contained in the Social
Principles and not in the main section of the United Methodist Book of
Discipline. He was acquitted by a narrow vote of the trial court. 

Several months later, the church's Judicial Council ruled that the
prohibition against such ceremonies was enforceable. The statement in the
Social Principles holds that such ceremonies "shall not be conducted by our
ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches."

Creech, who had been pastor of First United Methodist Church of Omaha at the
time of his first trial, has been on an extended leave of absence since
summer 1998. He resides in North Carolina, though he remains a member of the
Nebraska Annual Conference.

# # #

*Gangler is a free-lance writer from Grand Prairie, Texas.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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