Lutheran Group Votes To Allow Gay Members To Serve As Clergy

Lutheran Group Eases Limits on Gay Clergy

By MICHAEL LUO and CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Published: August 21, 2009


After an emotional debate over the authority of Scripture and the limits of biblical inclusiveness, leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination voted Friday to allow gay men and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as members of the clergy.

The vote made the denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the latest mainline Protestant church to permit such ordinations, contributing to a halting sense of momentum on the issue within liberal Protestantism.

By a vote of 559 to 451, delegates to the denomination’s national assembly in Minneapolis approved a resolution declaring that the church would find a way for people in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships” to serve as official ministers. (The church already allows celibate gay men and lesbians to become members of the clergy.)

Just before the vote, the Rev. Mark Hanson, the church’s presiding bishop, led the packed convention center in prayer. When the two bar graphs signaling the vote’s outcome popped up on the hall’s big screens seconds later, there were only a few quiet gasps, as delegates had been asked to avoid making an audible scene. But around the convention hall, clusters of men and women hugged one other and wept.

“To be able to be a full member of the church is really a lifelong dream,” said the Rev. Megan Rohrer of San Francisco, who is in a committed same-sex relationship and serves in three Lutheran congregations but is not officially on the church’s roster of clergy members. “I don’t have to have an asterisk next to my name anymore.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/us/22lutherans.html?_r=1&hp

to serve in this Lutheran synod? Is a straight Lutheran minister immediately defrocked if he has an affair? What if his wife has an affair and divorces him to be with the other man? The minister is no longer in a "lifelong" relationship. Is he forbidden from remarrying?

I'm asking because I don't know. It would seem that there's still plenty of room here for inequitable treatment of gays unless straights are held to the exact same standards.

"no". The language struck me as a little odd and inequitable as well (spoken as a gay Lutheran)

Well, I'm happy for the gay people who wanted an expanded role in their church, but I still think any gay person who has anything to do with organized religion - ESPECIALLY christianity - is a little nuts.

Following a 'call' to ministry in the ELCA
is a long, involved process of
attending seminary.. and all the academic stuff
required, AND
be in a 'discernment' process with your home synod.

Before candidates are approved for graduation,
you get the 'talk' about appropriate sexuality.

Before I graduated in 1994, we were required to sign
the "Visions and Expectations' Statement,
which states that all candidates for ministry
must be celibate until marriage,
and then remain faithful to aforesaid spouse.

What happens if straight pastors 'stray' from
their vows?

Pastors are accountable to their congregations
and bishops. If there is evidence of inappropriate
sexual behavior, and if an investigation
reveals that yes, the pastor violated his/her vows
he/she is removed from the congregation, and from the
official 'roster' of pastors.

Most bishops are strict about misconduct,
especially in light of what has happened
in the Roman Catholic church, and allll
the lawsuits.

Since I've been in ministry, I've seen
numerous men (and one woman) removed
from the clergy roster for inappropriate
sexual behavior.

Yes, everyone has stories about Pastor So-And-So
who ran around with other people.
But on the whole, bishops are fair and equitable
about appropriate behavior.

For years bishops have known about gifted gay
pastors, but allowed them the confidentiality
they needed to serve.

Now that the ELCA has approved this change
in clergy requirements, many very gifted
people who are in committed relationships
can serve the church. AND they have the
ministry policy behind them.