PITTSBURGH — The United Methodist Church's highest judicial body and its main legislative branch are slated to take up separate measures related to controversies over homosexuality at the denomination's national meeting in Pittsburgh today.

The nine-member Judicial Council went behind closed doors yesterday to deliberate whether to take legal action against an openly lesbian minister from Washington state.

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 legislative delegates to the church's General Conference were preparing to vote on legislation that preserves the denomination's ban on ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians. But in a change of tone, the new proposal would include language acknowledging "that Christians disagree" on the matter.

Ms. Shepler, the head of the church's National Urban Strategy Committee and pastor of Toledo's Monroe Street United Methodist Church, arrived five days before the global conference opened April 27 and has been carefully tracking 170 of the 1,700 resolutions she feels could affect urban issues.

But all she's been hearing in media coverage of the conference is "the 'H' word," she said. That's "H" as in homosexuality.

"I think it's a distraction. It's not the only issue we are dealing with," Ms. Shepler said.

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Methodists reject statement on divisions over homosexuality

By RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
5/4/2004, 3:05 p.m. ET 

PITTSBURGH (AP) — United Methodists affirmed their church's condemnation of homosexuality Tuesday by rejecting a measure that would have officially acknowledged that Christians disagree on the issue

NEW!!!! http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=1837788

Pittsburgh-AP -- Methodists who seek broader acceptance of gays marched together to the church's national meeting today -- then dropped to their knees in prayer as delegates arrived for a day of voting.