ELCA to stay unified despite differences on homosexuality
Associated Press, Journal Sentinel staff
Posted: Aug. 13, 2005
A national meeting of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America rejected a proposal Friday that would have allowed gays in committed relationships to serve as clergy under certain conditions.
The measure would have affirmed the church ban on ordaining sexually active gays and lesbians but would have allowed bishops and church districts called synods to seek an exception for a particular candidate - if that person was in a long-term relationship and met other restrictions.
Delegates at the meeting in Orlando, Fla., voted against the measure 503-490. Even if it had won a simple majority of votes, that wouldn't have been enough; the proposal needed a two-thirds majority to pass.
"The other part of that story is that half of the voting members in the ELCA Churchwide Assembly demonstrated a desire to create a way for gays and lesbian individuals in lifelong, committed relationships to be ordained, which is a new threshold that we have reached in this church regarding that issue," said Bishop Paul Stumme-Diers of the Greater Milwaukee Synod, who described himself as supporting the full participation of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.
Earlier in the day, delegates voted 851-127 to keep the church unified despite serious differences over homosexuality.
The delegates also voted 670-323 to approve a statement related to blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples that appears to continue an ambiguous status quo in which local bishops, pastors and congregations decide on their own what to do, even though the national church does not approve of them.
That statement essentially embraces a 1993 advisory statement by the ELCA Conference of Bishops that such blessings should not be approved as an official action of church ministry because there is no basis for them in Scripture or tradition but that pastors and congregations should be trusted to discern ways "to provide faithful pastoral care to all to whom they minister."
The approved statement stopped short of letting pastors ask permission to bless same-sex unions, but it does not define pastoral care and does not preclude such blessings, ELCA spokeswoman Melissa Ramirez Cooper said Friday.
"This allows, in my interpretation, for the blessing of unions," said Stumme-Diers, who noted that the assembly rejected efforts to explicitly ban such blessings.
The Milwaukee synod's annual assembly has endorsed same-sex blessings in recent years but also has reached out to those who disagreed by affirming pastors and congregations who oppose such blessings.
Stumme-Diers said about a half-dozen congregations in the synod have formally announced that they perform blessings of same-sex unions, while a handful have announced that they will not.
At its annual meeting in June, the Milwaukee synod passed a resolution recommending that the Churchwide Assembly "permit gay and lesbian candidates in committed relationships to be considered for ordination on the same basis as other candidates."
The sexuality statements that the assembly voted on this week - the product of three years' work by a special church task force - were meant as a compromise that would satisfy both those who support gay clergy and those who regard gay sex as sinful. However, the measures drew immediate opposition from Lutherans on opposing sides of the debate.
Conservatives said the ordination proposal would have effectively overturned prohibitions against non-celibate gays in the Lutheran ministry. Advocates for gays weren't satisfied, either. They said the measure would have created a second-class roster for homosexual clergy in the church.
In a news conference immediately after the vote, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson said he hoped gays and lesbians did not take the vote as a sign they were not welcome in the 4.9 million-member church. "They are. We have said that publicly and clearly," he said.
Asked how ELCA Lutherans in southeastern Wisconsin will react, Stumme-Diers said, "I think there will be grave disappointment by many that this 2005 Churchwide Assembly did not pass recommendation three (on ordination), and there will be a certain discomfort by others that we did ratify recommendation two (on same-sex blessings).
"And I think that those who advocate full participation by gays and lesbians in the life of the church are partially appreciative of the work of this assembly and yet left wanting, because they feel more work is left to be done."
Stumme-Diers was one of 18 clergy and lay voting members from the Greater Milwaukee Synod at the assembly in Orlando.
Some Lutheran gay advocates were angered. A coalition called Goodsoil accused the church of "sacrificing (gays) on the altar of a false and ephemeral sense of unity."
As debate on gay ordination began Friday afternoon, about 100 gay advocates wearing rainbow sashes walked silently to the front of the hall, stood before the stage where Hanson was overseeing the meeting and turned to face the delegates.
They stood quietly and did not move, even though Hanson politely asked them to disperse several times. After some discussion, the delegates decided to proceed. The protesters stayed in place and remained standing even after the voting ended.
Last month, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada voted against allowing local pastors to decide whether to bless same-sex couples. The other two major U.S. Lutheran bodies - the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod - are staunchly conservative on gay issues.
The ELCA task force still has a major project ahead: It is scheduled to develop a statement on human sexuality that will be presented at the denomination's 2009 assembly.
Tom Heinen of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
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