Reported by Bill Kelly, STATEWIDE Correspondent.

It was a lovely ceremony according to the people who were there. It happened last September in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in Omaha. Reverend Jimmy Creech presided over a covenant ceremony celebrating the union of two women. The couple called it a wedding.
[Rev. Jimmy Creech] "There are people who believe that having the ceremony in the church and celebrating communion was a sacrilege. I considered it a very sacred event."
This was not the first commitment ceremony for a couple of the same sex done by Reverend Creech. His scrapbook contains photos of other same sex ceremonies over which he has presided. These are mostly happy memories?
[Rev. Creech] "These are wonderful memories. And I have always felt honored to be a part of these occasions. They're very special occasions."
The first was in 1990 when he was a pastor in North Carolina. A dozen more covenant ceremonies followed.
[Rev. Creech] "I had to work with my own homophobia, my own heterosexism, my own stereotypes of what's usual and what's unusual."
By the time Jimmy Creech took his new assignment to a church in Omaha, his beliefs on the appropriate Christian response to homosexuality had been solidified.
[Rev. Creech] "Is this really true to the Christian Gospel? Is this really true to the ministry of Jesus Christ? To deny gay men and lesbians a place at the table, to deny to them the confirmation that God's Grace is given to them?"
When two women in his congregation approached him last summer about their wish to formalize their relationship, there was no hesitation from Reverend Creech.
[Rev. Creech] "These were two people that had tremendous courage and integrity, and in spite of the rejection they have felt in society from their families and from the church were willing to come forward, accept themselves, accept God's love for them, and accept the love they have for each other and make a commitment, to stand in the face of all rejection and all bigotry that exists and to say we're going to be supporting one another, we're going to care for one another, we're going to be together."
But this ceremony would be different. The previous same sex ceremonies had been done quietly without the official knowledge of the Methodist hierarchy. This time Reverend Creech told the Nebraska bishop, Joel Martinez, he would be performing a ceremony for a lesbian couple.
[Bishop Joel Martinez] "In many other instances clergy has performed these coveting ceremonies and quite often the bishop is not aware that they're being performed or they're performed in places like homes or places outside the church, and quite often it doesn't come to the attention of the church supervisors. In this case, it did, and I advised Mr. Creech -- Reverend Creech to refrain from doing it."
[Rev. Creech] "To be faithful as a United Methodist clergy, I had to be accountable for this decision instead of doing it in silence and doing it in private."
The wedding went forward anyway. That act of defiance by Jimmy Creech means he will be put on trial by the Methodist Church.
"This could cost you your pulpit in the Methodist Church. Is it worth it? "
[Rev. Creech] "Well, let me say this. I don't think it would be worth protecting the pulpit for me to compromise on a matter of justice and faith. What is it that I would be protecting? What is it that I would be wanting to hold on to, something that would be less than what God has called me to be? "
[Rev. Creech] "And let us pray. Bountiful God, we give thanks and you have refreshed us at your table by granting us the presence of Christ..."
A sizable segment of Reverend Creech's congregation was outraged that the ceremony was conducted in the same sanctuary where they hold services every Sunday.
[Bob Howell, congregation member] "A good many of the people were just in shock. They didn't believe that something like that could happen."
"You were in shock? "
[Bob Howell] "Oh, of course."
Members of the Omaha congregation joined with other Nebraska Methodists in demanding Creech be stripped of his ministry.
[Elmer Burhenne, congregation member] "He is no good. He should be derobed and clear out of the Methodist system and out of everyone's system as far as I'm concerned."
[Betty Howell, congregation member] "It tears families apart. We've got some families that go along with what Jimmy does and another sanction of that same family does not believe. They have very strong beliefs against what he is doing. So he is really harming the families as well."
[Bob Howell] "I have had people shake their fist at me as they walk into church. They walk down the aisle and stare just because you don't think alike. "
"And this is a church."
[Bob Howell] It's a church. "That's not what you expect when you go there."
The Methodist Church attempts to guide its members on important issues with its social principles. They state that homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred work. But they also say the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
[Rev. Creech] "That is the linchpin that holds all of the discrimination together in the United Methodist Church."
Reverend Creech has become the most visible spokesperson for a group of Methodist clergy who consider those statements to be in conflict.
[Rev. Creech] "You can't say that a person is -- that a gay person is loved and accepted but you can't be a gay person, you can't act as a gay person. You can't separate essence from being and behavior, and that's what the United Methodist Church has tried to do."
Another equally emphatic group of clergy feel there is room for acceptance of gays in their congregations without accepting their lifestyle. They feel the church's role is to change their behavior, to transform them into heterosexuals. Nebraska advocates of the Transforming Congregations began organizing this year. They declined to be interviewed for this story. Like-minded lay members of the church, Methodists from the Omaha congregation and across the state, feel the traditional interpretation of the Bible supports their outrage with Reverend Creech.
[June Johnson] "He is definitely against God's word."
[Maury Johnson, Gretna First United Methodist] "The Bible has stood the test of time in 2,000 years, and I don't believe that Jimmy Creech or anybody else can change the Bible."
[Bob Howell] "There are many people that would like to change the teachings of the Bible to suit the way they wish to live or the way they are living today, just interpret everything differently."
The division over homosexuality in the Methodist Church deepened in 1996 when new language was added to the social principles. "Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches."
[Omaha Minister]"So I begin with the question if God is love, is not God alive in all relationships where true love exists?"
For gay Christian couples, it's painful that their committed relationships can cannot be formalized in their church.
[Omaha Minister]When two persons of the same sex love each other deeply and wish to commit themselves in a relationship and to love, honor, and cherish each other until death, what is the motivating force behind their pledge of faith? "
[Group Responds]"Their steadfast power and love."
This was an unofficial recommitment ceremony for couples held recently in Omaha on Freedom to Marry Day.
[Ray Wright] "And if you're a member of the church, you should be entitled to the rights and privileges that go along with that membership. If that includes marriage, that includes marriage."
[Rev. Creech] "There's really no condemnation of a loving, caring, committed relationship between two men or between two women in scripture. There's also no condemnation or affirmation of that relationship. "
In his sermons, Creech argued again and again there is support for his views on what the Bible says and in what it doesn't say about same sex couples. The Methodist Church has said it accepts that there may be dissent on Biblical interpretation and on Methodist policy but that should not allow a minister to go his own way.
[Bishop Martinez] "The rules that we have, the policies that we have, the laws that the church has enacted need to be observed, and if we have a quarrel or difference of them, the proper avenues to work for changing some of the rules or some of the regulations or the policies and not to be in disobedience to them or to challenge them but to try to change them."
[Creech Supporter]"We feel outraged and we're abandoned. Covenant ceremonies are not being challenged in some conferences of the United Methodist Church around the country."
Reverend Creech was suspended last fall and has not been allowed to return to his church until after the trial is complete. Reverend Creech's supporters question why the Methodist Church has singled out this Omaha pastor and why he has been denied his pulpit even before he was put on trial. Reverend Creech who was suspended last fall and has not been allowed to return to his church until after the trial is complete meets regularly with friends and supporters.
[Creech Supporter]"I heard a couple of women sitting behind me Sunday talking about it and one said well, they believe that the Presbyterians and the Baptists and the Episcopalians are all facing the same things so maybe we're not in this alone."
Last month he returned to the pulpit for the first time since his suspension preaching at a church in Washington, D.C.
[Rev. Creech] "We must make that witness. We cannot allow our church any longer to continue to persecute members of our family."
At his trial Creech will argue the Methodist social principles are not steadfast orders but guidelines. He believes that he has the latitude to perform the ceremony and the moral obligation to do so.
[Rev. Creech] "I do not believe God will deny grace to people who are gay or lesbian simply because they are gay or lesbian any more than I believe God would deny grace to those who are non-gay -- "
"Or to those who perform the ceremony?"
[Rev. Creech] "Or to those who perform the ceremony... yeah."
The wedding that set off the furor remains an important and happy day for the people involved. The couple has chosen to remain anonymous, but in a letter to Archbishop Martinez, one of the women explains they felt something was missing in their relationship. "We were not truly joined in marriage and had not received the blessing of the church. We are thankful Reverend Creech responded to the spiritual longings of two Christian members of his church and was willing to minister to our spiritual needs." It will be a jury of 12 other Methodist ministers in a court convened before a retired bishop from Indiana that will determine if Jimmy Creech's stand was an act of principle or blasphemy.

UPDATE -- On March 19, 1998, a 13-member jury voted 8-5 that Rev. Creech disobeyed church law in marrying the gay couple, but that was a single vote shy of nine needed to convict him under United Methodist Law. The Jurors, four women and nine men deliberated more than nine hours, and cast their votes anonymously.
Later, Nebraska Methodist Bishop Joel Martinez relieved Creech of his post as minister in Omaha. Creech returned to the east coast and has not decided what the future holds for him. First United Methodist Church is still divided over the issue.