It's been a long two years for the Rev. Karen Dammann, whose revelation that she was in a homosexual relationship galvanized debate about homosexuality within the United Methodist Church.
With yesterday's decision by an appeals committee upholding her status as a minister in good standing, the former pastor of Woodland Park United Methodist Church is hoping to return to Seattle to serve.
The United Methodist Church Western Judicial Committee on Appeals decided to uphold an earlier decision to dismiss a complaint against Dammann, who was accused of violating church law prohibiting "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from being ordained or serving as pastors.
That means Dammann, who served as pastor at the Woodland Park church from 1996 to 1999, will not face church trial. "Meredith and I are thrilled and happy," said Dammann, reached at her home near Amherst, Mass., where she is on family leave, living with her partner and their son.
Dammann's case has been in limbo since February 2001, when she revealed in a letter to Bishop Elias Galvan, head of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church, that she was in a "partnered, covenanted, homosexual relationship." Galvan, under church orders, filed a complaint against Dammann.
An investigative committee of the Pacific Northwest Conference dismissed the complaint in July, but the church appealed, saying the committee committed "egregious errors of church law."
The church had appealed on the grounds that "the facts were so overwhelmingly obvious that to not refer to trial was an egregious error," said the Rev. Marv Vose, chairman of the Western Judicial Committee on Appeals.
Vose was one of three in the minority in the 4-3 appeals-committee decision yesterday.
The majority opinion made its decision based on the broad discretion given to the investigative committee and the inappropriateness of the appeals committee to second-guess those decisions.
Yesterday's decision can be appealed only to the church's Judicial Council, its highest court. Dammann's case is the second that has put the Pacific Northwest Conference at odds with the larger church on homosexuality.
In May, the conference's investigative committee dismissed a complaint against the Rev. Mark Williams, Dammann's successor at Woodland Park and the nation's only openly gay Methodist minister serving a congregation.
The committee decided it had insufficient evidence to prove Williams was sexually active with someone of the same gender.
The Pacific Northwest Conference is in the minority among United Methodist conferences nationwide. Church doctrine says the practice of homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching."