Franklyn Schaefer

Dear friends,

"Defrocked" outlines in some detail the trauma of going through a church trial and loosing my career for an act of love I performed for my son Tim after I performed his same-gender wedding. I had been working as an ordained minister in a rural United Methodist Church in Eastern PA for about 20 years.

When my son Tim asked me to perform his wedding in the the year 2007, I could not deny my child, especially since he had been harmed by the doctrine of the UM Church. This doctrine made him believe he was going to hell as a gay man; he tried to pray his homosexuality away and when nothing changed in his sexual orientation, he came very close to taking his life in the year 2000. When all this came out, my wife and I embraced him and supported him.

The news about the wedding finally came out in 2013; a member of the church I was serving drove to Boston MA to find the marriage certificate and filed a complaint. I was tried by a United Methodist court and was defrocked on December 19th, 2013 losing my job and career, when I refused to uphold the Book of Discipline (the church's law book) in its entirety, which would have meant to denounce gay marriage rights.

As I shared with my jury, three of my four children are gay, and I just had to stand up for them as well the rights of all LGBT members of the church. Curiously, my story gained national media attention and I found myself on Good Morning America, the View, Anderson Cooper, among other shows.

Following my defrocking, I became a speaker and activist, and while I was ultimately reinstated by the Judicial Council in the fall of 2014, I continue to advocate for human rights while also working in a new United Methodist parish in Isla Vista California.