penalty stage of the trial<\/a>, the court suspended Schaefer from his ministerial duties for 30 days and declared that if he could not \u201cuphold the Discipline in its entirety\u201d at the end of the suspension, he would surrender his credentials. He refused to do that and, on Dec. 19, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Board of Ordained Ministry asked him to give up his credentials.<\/p>\nIn a statement immediately after the decision was released, Schaefer expressed happiness over his \u201crefrocking\u201d by the committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never did understand the severity of my punishment for an act of love for my son Tim,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cThe committee of appeals understood that my defrocking sought to penalize me not for what I did but for what I might do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s ruling said \u201cerrors of church law vitiate the penalty imposed by the Trial Court,\u201d including \u201cthe mixing and matching of penalties that are designed to be distinct\u201d and predicating the imposition of a penalty on \u201ca future possibility, which may or may not occur, rather than a past or present act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaefer called the decision \u201ca hopeful sign for our LGBTQ community\u201d because the committee \u201crecognized that I was wrongfully punished for standing with those who are discriminated against.\u201d LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning individuals.<\/p>\n
Many in the church already have been \u201cmoving toward love over legalism,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, people throughout The United Methodist Church, who invited me into their pulpits, sat with me at their dinner tables and supported my family with their donations, have refrocked me already. Their movement of love embraced me and together we are moving forward to bring about that day when our denomination no longer excludes any of God\u2019s beloved children. And I will continue to work toward that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kathy L. Gilbert | June 24, 2014 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) The Rev. Frank Schaefer had his ministerial credentials reinstated by a United Methodist regional appeals committee June 23, three days\u00a0after a hearing held near Baltimore. By an 8 to 1 majority, the denomination\u2019s Northeastern Jurisdictional Committee on Appeals\u00a0restored his credentials and ordered the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":7698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,3],"tags":[383,14,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-7697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-umns","9":"tag-frank-schaefer","10":"tag-sexuality","11":"tag-umns"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014-schaefer-press-conf-1-584x388.jpg?fit=584%2C388&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-209","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7697\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}