Methodist Church Defrocks Unrepentant Pastor Who Officiated At Son's Wedding

Last month the United Methodist Church "convicted" a Pennsylvania minister of performing a same-sex wedding for his son. Yesterday they defrocked him for refusing to say that he'll never perform another gay wedding.

The fate of Reverend Frank Schaefer, pastor of the Zion United Methodist Church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was decided by a United Methodist church board in a closed-door session in a church office located in a suburban Philadelphia office park. "He no longer holds the ministerial office in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference by virtue of his decision," Bishop Peggy Johnson said in a statement. Schaefer left the site without comment but scheduled a press conference for Thursday afternoon. Schaefer was defrocked less than a month after he was found guilty in a church trial of violating church law by performing the ceremony for his son, Tim, in 2007.