A United Methodist pastor on Friday asked a church appeals panel to overturn a decision to defrock him for refusing to promise to uphold the church's law, which bans ministers from performing same-sex marriages, according to The Associated Press.
Frank Schaefer of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, had his ministerial credentials stripped last year after a trial jury found that he was guilty of violating church rules when he officiated his son's 2007 same-sex wedding in Massachusetts, where gay marriage had been legal for three years, the AP reported.
The 52-year-old Schaefer was suspended for 30 days, but at the end of it, he was defrocked for refusing to pledge never to officiate at another gay marriage, meaning Schaefer is no longer employed with the United Methodist Church, according to the AP.
On Friday, Schaefer's attorney, Rev. Scott Campbell, told the nine-member appeals panel in Maryland that the pastor had served his sentence, the AP reported. He argued the decision to take the more drastic action was illegal because it was based on the assumption that the minister would break church rules in the future.
However, counsel for the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, Rev. Dr. Christopher Fisher, said the ruling is valid because Schaefer disobeyed church law, adding that the 30-day suspension was not a sentence but a delay after which the church would determine whether he could stay in the official ministry, according to the AP.
Campbell told the panel that Schaefer's sentence was imposed for two violations: officiating a same-sex wedding and disobeying church law, but he said the defrocking resulted from "an entirely new allegation: the unwillingness to give the church assurance about the future," the AP reported.
After his conviction in 2013, when Schaefer was asked if he would promise to obey the "Book of Discipline" in its entirety, which includes a ban on performing same-sex marriages, Schaefer refused, according to the AP.
"Making a statement in response to a question is in no way saying, 'I will not uphold the Book of Discipline,'" Campbell said, the AP reported. "The trial court erred egregiously, and sought to penalize Mr. Schaefer not for what he's done, but for what he might do in the future."
Fisher argued that Schaefer's 30-day suspension "was a period of grace for Rev. Schaefer to discern his motivations," according to the AP. He told the panel that Schaefer's initial explanation was that he officiated the wedding out of love for his son, but after conviction said he'd discovered a new calling to advocate for the LGBT church community.
