Mark Tooley of UMAction at the Institute for Religion and Democracy had this to say:
The decision to reappoint the former Rev. Gordon to St. John’s church in Baltimore, with no wider discussion in the church, sets a troubling precedent. Once again, liberal church elites, presiding over dwindling churches, are making decisions without regard for historic Christian teaching or a wider consensus among the church’s membership.
Rev. Phoenix merits compassion for a lifelong struggle over gender identity issues, as related at the conference. But the church helps no one when it fails to faithfully transmit the Gospel of hope and transformation.
We hope The United Methodist Church will act, where the leadership of the Baltimore-Washington Conference has failed, by establishing clear ethical and theological guidelines about the role of gender is God’s creation.
In other words - there isn't any law governing a case like this, but there should be.
First, let me say that, as gender reassignment surgery has been around for a generation, and this is the first case of which I am aware, at least in the United Methodist Church, of a transgendered person seeking appointment, all I can say is there probably does not need to be a law about it. This, it would seem, should remain at the discretion of the presiding Bishop, with burden upon the Bishop and Cabinet as to why they are not appointing a person who has changed their sexual identity. The former Rev. Gordon apparently made it through all the steps to ordination - including psychological evaluation - even as her struggles over gender identity went on. While I did not know her when she was still Ann Gordon, I do believe that, as someone who has wrestled with this particular angel, the struggle over what God is doing in one's life is something that never ends, and as there is no legal reason to deny him appointment, it would be in keeping with the Gospel of grace to keep him in ministry.
On the question of gender reassignment, I will admit mixed feelings. For myself, I think that, despite all the troubles that ensue (physical, social), going through medical and surgical gender transformation is a way of sidestepping underlying issues of identity rather than dealing with them openly. Unlike sexual orientation, the social construction of gender identity should not be ignored; if a person internalizes certain conflicting feelings that abound in our society about gender, resulting in confusion, I would think that, rather than the radical step of changing one's persona to fit the conflict, it might be better to pursue aggressive therapy to deal with the conflict.
Or, I could be wrong. Perhaps gender reassignment is something that comes only after the very struggle and therapeutic alternatives I mention above have been exhausted, with the only option for peace of mind being reassignment. The process is unknown to me, and so I suppose I should reserve comments just as I reserve judgment.
As to the question of the place of transgendered in the Church and ministry, all I can say is that, unlike sexual orientation, we have here a horse of a whole different color. Tooley throws in all sorts of non-sequiturs - dwindling numbers (he should come to our church, which is growing by leaps and bounds), the lack of debate, etc. - and he never comes out and argues that Rev. Phoenix should not have been appointed. The reason, it seems, is clear - there is no precedent, no reason in law to deny him appointment. Tooley is being sneaky here, insisting that the issue be addressed at General Conference next year, presumably to act to deny any future appointment for the transgendered.
I have to ask why. My own discomfort and questions aside, the issue is one of the legitimacy of Rev. Phoenix's call, not a legal issue of whether or not he should be appointed to serve a church. As the matter is unaddressed, silence is consent. I admit my own discomfort while still placing my faith in the Holy Spirit's work through Rev. Phoenix's struggle. It would seem that Tooley might benefit from doing the same.
