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sunspot.net - maryland news Church to rule on cleric who had sex
change
Methodist pastor in Md. took leave of absence for surgical procedure
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By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
Sun Staff
Originally published June 5, 2002
Excerpt:
- Methodist Church officials are expected to decide this week whether to
reappoint a Thurmont minister who took a leave of absence from his
congregation to have a sex-change operation and become a woman.
The question of whether to allow the minister - formerly Richard A.
Zamostny and now named Rebecca Steen - to end a voluntary leave of absence
and lead a congregation has touched off a quiet discussion within the
Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, which is
to debate the issue in a session tomorrow at the start of its annual
meeting.
- Bishop Felton Edwin May declined, through a spokesman, to comment on
his position on Steen's return to active ministry, but Methodist leaders -
both supporters and opponents - suggest that she will receive an
appointment as requested. Before the leave, Zamostny served as pastor of
churches in Thurmont and Rockville.
- The Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, an ethicist and pastor of Foundry United
Methodist Church in Washington, said undergoing a sex-change operation
does not disqualify a person from being a minister.
- Still, some conservative ministers and religious groups say the
conference should find a way to prevent Steen from leading a congregation,
even in the absence of rules that prevent it.
- "This person, even though he uses a female name, in the sight of God
is genetically still a man who has mutilated his body," said Mark Tooley,
director of the United Methodist Committee of the conservative Institute
on Religion and Democracy.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun |
