By MICHELLE LOCKE,
Associated Press Writer AP

BERKELEY, Calif. - A United Methodist transgender minister said Tuesday
he was "happily surprised" by a church council ruling allowing him to
stay on the job.

The church's top court, which considered the issue during a recent
session in San Francisco, stopped short of addressing whether a change
of gender violates the denomination's rules.

Instead, the judicial council referred to church policy that says a
clergyperson in good standing can't be terminated unless there's been
administrative or judicial action.

"The adjective placed in front of the noun 'clergyperson' does not
matter," the council ruled. "What matters is that clergypersons, once
ordained and admitted to membership in full connection, cannot have that
standing changed without being accorded fair process."

In a related ruling, the council said all name changes should be treated
the same regardless of the reason.

The case involved the Rev. Ann Gordon, who spent five years as minister
at St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore before undergoing
surgery and hormone therapy and becoming the Rev. Drew Phoenix.

Phoenix was reappointed this spring by Bishop John Schol of the
Methodists' Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, who noted that the
denomination's Book of Discipline said nothing about transgender clergy.

The United Methodist Church bars appointing self-avowed practicing gay
clergy and does not support gay unions. The issue of whether the church
can have a transgender minister may yet be addressed by the church's
legislative body, which meets next spring in Fort Worth, Texas.

Phoenix, who learned of the ruling Tuesday, said he has sometimes been
discouraged by negative reaction to his status but thinks that staying
on the job is a way to change minds.

"I've always been hopeful that the church will open its doors more and
be more inclusive of the (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender)
community, and I believe that happens when those of us that are in that
community just keep showing up," he said.

The judicial council met without its president, surgeon general nominee
James Holsinger, who is a Kentucky cardiologist.

Holsinger, who has been criticized by gay rights groups for various
things including a 1991 paper in which he says gay sex was unnatural and
unhealthy, bowed out of the meeting, saying his nomination could become
a distraction.

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