Ecclesia de Lange claims she was unfairly dismissed by the Methodist Church because of her sexual orientation.
|||Cape Town - The application by Ecclesia de Lange, the former Methodist minister who says she was unfairly dismissed by the Methodist Church of Southern Africa because of her sexual orientation, is to be heard by the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
De Lange, 43, was suspended and then dismissed after announcing her intention to marry her same-sex partner in December 2009.
She wants the court to reinstate her as a minister, and set aside the findings of an internal church disciplinary hearing that found against her in February 2010.
De Lange told the Cape Times on Sunday that although church law defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, this was not sufficient reason for her to be dismissed.
“There was no policy on homosexual relations,” De Lange said, adding that the Methodist church had been formulating policy on homosexual marriages for years, and had not come to a conclusion.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in South Africa since 2006, the year De Lange was ordained.
As the church had no clear policy on homosexual marriages, De Lange said, she hadn’t broken any rules.
She said she had been “utterly shocked” on hearing in 2010 that she was going to be dismissed.
She was ordained as a Methodist minister in August 2006 and worked with the congregations of Brackenfell and Windsor Park in Cape Town. De Lange said that if she won the case against the church, her “first prize” would be to return to these congregations.
On December 6, 2009, she told her congregations that she intended marrying her same-sex partner.
Four days later, she was suspended.
In early 2010, De Lange, who had married her partner, was charged with being in breach of the laws governing the church.
De Lange was dismissed by the church on February 20, 2010, after her appeal was rejected.
After arbitration broke down, she decided to take the church to court in June.
The church could not be contacted for comment.
jan.cronje@inl.co.za
Cape Times