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44-year-old man was arrested May 21 after
threatening to bomb the predominantly
gay Metropolitan Community Church of the
Gentle Shepherd in Vancouver, Wash., and kill
the senior pastor.
According to the Rev. Dianne Shaw, Casey
Gene Peirsol called seven times during the past
year. “The early calls were rambling and disori
ented, but last week the calls turned overtly hos
tile and threatening,” she said in a statement
May 31.
Two of the messages threatened to bomb the
church, and one contained a death threat
against Shaw. She saved three of the messages
293-5034
and turned them over to police, including one
in which the caller said, “I’m going to hum your
[expletive deleted) church to the ground
because you’re gay and lesbian homosexuals.”
Police traced the calls to Peirsol, who has
complaint, charging him with “practices declared
by the United Methodist Church to be incompat
ible with Christian teaching.” The nine-member
Annual Conference Committee on Investigation,
which acts similarly to a grand jury, met for only
two hours before rendering its unanimous finding.
Williams’ congregation has supported him
throughout this yearlong process. Maggie
Brown, Committee on Pastor-Parish Relations
chairwoman, said his ministry has been both
deeply spiritual and truly uniting.
“We are deeply pleased and relieved that we
will he able to continue as the beneficiaries of
his effective ministry here at Woodland Park
Church,” she said. “I wish every church could
have a pastor as fine as ours.”
Amory Peck of Bellingham, coordinator of
the Pacific Northwest Reconciling United
Methodists, added: “Today we are rejoicing as
Mark Williams is freed to continue his calling.
Now we look forward to working within this
invigorated spirit of justice and reconciliation in
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Ju m I S * 1 6
Lou Beres (right), Oregon Christian Coalition executive director, scolds Salem Mayor Mike
Swaim after the Who Cares program May 20
been charged with malicious harassment and
making a bomb threat. Vancouver police say
they believe he was plotting to blow up the
church to kill Shaw.
It is not known if Peirsol intended to carry
out his plan during a service when the building
would’ve been filled with parishioners. He is
being held on $50,000 bond and is scheduled to
appear June 11 in Superior Court.
Shaw said her church is coping well in the
face of the threats. It has remained open, and no
services have been canceled.
The Rev. Troy D. Perry, who founded the
denomination in 1968, said that 21 of the pre
dominantly gay M CC congregations have been
targets of arson and fire bombing and that more
than half have been victims of threats, physical
attacks, hate calls, hate mail, vandalism, graffiti
or desecration. “Acts such as these are reminders
that our work on behalf of social and spiritual
justice is still far from finished.”
C hurch D rops C harges
A gainst G ay P astor
A
fter hearing the case of the Rev. Mark
Edward Williams, pastor of Seattle’s
Wixxlland Park United Methodist Church, a
committee found insufficient evidence May 31
to sustain the complaint of homosexual practice
filed against him. He is now free to continue his
career as an ordained minister.
After Williams publicly came out as a gay man
following a report to his annual regional confer
ence last June in Tacoma, Bishop Elias Galvan of
Seattle said he felt compelled to file an official
the United Methodist Church.”
M ayor , M abon D ebate
alem Mayor Mike Swaim debated Lon Mahon,
Oregon Citizeas Alliance chairman, during his
Who Cares cable access program May 20.
Dozens of people came to City Hall to listen
in on the war of words and to ask questions. The
crowd seemed to be split evenly between the
pro- and anti-gay sides.
Swaim suggested the face-off in the wake of
the City Council’s recent vote to extend civil
rights protection based on sexual orientation
and gender identity. Mabon believes this will
give queer people “special rights.”
S
C ourt R ejects G overnment
C ensorship in L ibraries
n yet another blow to the government’s
repeated attempts to censor the Internet, a
court May 31 decisively rejected a law that
forces libraries to deny adults as well as minors
access to constitutionally protected speech
online in order to receive federal funding.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court
in Philadelphia agreed with arguments made by the
American Civil Liberties Union and others that
blocking programs cannot effectively screen out
only material deemed “harmful to minors.” The
court called the software a “blunt instrument,"
adding that “the problems faced by manufacturers
and vendors of filtering software are legion.”
“The court today barred the government from
I
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