Methodist Minister Faces Sanctions For Officiating Son's Same-Sex Marriage

United Methodist minister Thomas Ogletree is facing church sanctions for presiding over the wedding of his son and another man.

Dr. Ogletree, 79, is now facing a possible canonical trial for his action, accused by several New York United Methodist ministers of violating church rules. While he would not be the first United Methodist minister to face discipline for performing a same-sex wedding, he could well be the one with the highest profile. He is a retired dean of Yale Divinity School, a veteran of the nation’s civil rights struggles and a scholar of the very type of ethical issues he is now confronting. “Sometimes, when what is officially the law is wrong, you try to get the law changed,” Dr. Ogletree, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said in a courtly Southern drawl over a recent lunch at Yale, where he remains an emeritus professor of theological ethics. “But if you can’t, you break it.”

Ogletree says he was "inspired" by his son's request, adding, "I actually wasn’t thinking of this as an act of civil disobedience or church disobedience. I was thinking of it as a response to my son."  According to the above-linked article, over 200 New York-area Methodist ministers have said they would perform a same-sex wedding.