text: The Rev. Amy DeLong (left) leads supporters in song to celebrate the anniversary of Tina Lang (right) Tuesday morning at Peace United Methodist Church in Kaukauna. DeLong was at the church for the start of her trial for openly defying the United Methodist Church's ban on practicing gay and lesbian clergy.
  By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
  Published on: 6/21/2011
  Kaukauna - The counsel for a United Methodist minister on trial on charges of being a "self-avowed practicing homosexual" and presiding over a same-sex union conceded key elements of the church's case on Tuesday. But the Rev. Scott Campbell said church laws don't always get it right and that history and future generations will judge what transpires in the trial over the next couple of days.
  "Just as history has judged slavery and the exclusion of women from ordained ministry, history will judge the church in this instance too," said Campbell, a Massachusetts elder who is representing the Rev. Amy DeLong at the trial.
  "What we decide here is momentous. It will be with us for the rest of our lives."
  The Rev. Tom Lambrecht, who is representing the Wisconsin Conference, which filed the charges against DeLong, said she entered into a sacred covenant when she was ordained, agreeing to uphold the laws of the church, and that the conference is obligated to hold accountable those who breach that commitment.
  "We engage in this process . . . not because we are eager for controversy or confrontation but to uphold the integrity of our clergy covenant," he said.
  The church trial is expected to draw international attention.
  The church began laying out its case in the trial at Peace United Methodist Church in Kaukauna on Tuesday, submitting as evidence a number of documents. They included the text of the holy union ceremony conducted by DeLong for a lesbian couple in 2009 and the declaration of domestic partnership she filed with her own same-sex partner that same year.
  The United Methodist Church, the nation's third-largest denomination, allows gay and lesbian clergy but only if they are celibate, and it prohibits all pastors from blessing same-sex unions.
  Campbell conceded in his opening remarks that DeLong had conducted the ceremony and that she had long ago divulged to her bishops that she was in a committed and loving relationship with a woman.
  Tuesday's selection of the trial court, 13 ordained elders who will act as jurors, illustrated the church's deep division over sexuality. Fifteen of the 23 potential jurors seated in the first round of questioning said they had concerns about the church's laws on sexuality, and several said they would have trouble applying them in good conscience.
  In a pretrial hearing before jury selection, DeLong's council objected to the proceedings, saying Wisconsin church officials had known of DeLong's sexual orientation and sanctioned her same-sex relationship for 11 years yet continued to place her in ministry and promised not to discipline her.
  The Wisconsin Conference "forfeited its right to bring charges because its officers colluded to ignore the provision (on homosexuality) for more than a decade, Campbell said in a pretrial hearing in which he laid out a number of objections that were read into the record, in part for purposes of appeal.
  DeLong was charged last year after divulging in her annual assessment of ministry that she had performed the union ceremony and registered with her partner of now 16 years under Wisconsin's Domestic Partnership Law.
  Campbell said as part of the proffer, that the church trial abridges DeLong's civil rights in violation of church rules on such proceedings. And he objected to pretrial rulings by presiding judge Bishop Clay Lee of Mississippi barring testimony by DeLong and at least seven other witnesses.
  Campbell said those witnesses would have shown, among other things, that church laws on sexuality are contradictory; that the church never asked whether DeLong was engaging in prohibited sex acts, as required by its rules; and that her decision to preside over the same-sex ceremony was "grounded in the highest laws of discipline."
  They also would have shown that Wisconsin Conference Bishop Linda Lee, her predecessor and others in the hierarchy knew of DeLong's sexual orientation and partnered relationship and chose not to mandate the review required by church law.