A lesbian Methodist minister defrocked last year after admitting to living with a woman won her appeal against the church's decision because it had not defined "practicing homosexual," the United Methodist Church said on Friday.
A statement on the church's Web site said a committee hearing the appeal by Elizabeth Stroud in Baltimore reversed the ecclesiastical court's December decision that stripped her of her credentials as a minister at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, Philadelphia.
...In a 14-page decision, the committee reversed both the conviction and the penalty on the technical grounds that the church has not properly defined the term "practicing homosexual." The committee also held that the church law under which the charges were brought was a new standard that had not been formally ratified by the church authorities and so could not be used to convict Stroud. [from ChuckCurrie.blogs.com]
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