Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990                   TAG: 9005120360
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

METHODISTS REVIEW HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS

The congregation at the 218-year-old Dumbarton United Methodist Church plans to marry two women soon in the first test of the new policy.

The church's decision sets the stage for possible conflict with the national church.

"We have to take a look at it and see whether it goes beyond the limits of the United Methodist Church and whether they have the authority to do that," said Lyle Harper, who serves under Bishop Yeakel as district superintendent of the Washington Central District of the United Methodist Church.

The 230-member congregation chose "to celebrate with a `blessing of covenant' or `holy union,' commitments that lesbian-gay couples wish to make," a church policy statement said. Homosexual unions would be treated "with the same serious and pastoral support that are afforded heterosexual couples in the service of marriage . . .," the church said.

The United Methodist Church officially opposes homosexuality though it makes no specific reference to holy unions of homosexuals in the laws that govern the church, The Book of Discipline.

- Associated Press