In an article about a pair of recent United Methodist Church Judicial Council decisions about homosexuals in the pulpit and as members, the N.Y. Times seems a little confused over church polity and politics, apparently thinking the latter determines the former:

Some Methodists had voiced concerns that the debate over gay men and women could rupture their church, the country's third-largest denomination, and cause conservatives to leave. The rulings will most likely assuage conservatives, church experts said. But the experts also said they did not expect those who want the inclusion of gay men and lesbians in the ministry to back down, even if chances of a reversal in church policy remain remote.

One decision defrocked a lesbian minister, the other reinstated a minister that refused to allow a gay man to become a member, although he had been welcomed to worship at the church. The latter decision, especially, seems to not take a very strong stance on homosexuality per se, but instead allows individual pastors discretion.

Only in the last paragraph is the actual underlying issue -- the one which was effectively localized to individual pastors in the recent decisions -- addressed:

At the heart of the disputes, several clerics said, is a profound conflict among Methodists over the nature of homosexuality. "Is it something you can't control," Mr. Phillips [a Methodist minister and associate professor of the practice of Christian worship at Duke University Divinity School] said, "or something sinful and that should be repented of?"

Not everything is a political issue.