ELCA votes to not delay decision on blessing same-sex marriages

ELCA votes to not delay decision on blessing same-sex marriages
Tim Cigelske, Associated Press

Published August 17, 2003 ELCA17

MILWAUKEE -- The nation's largest Lutheran denomination voted Saturday to avoid further delaying a decision on blessing same-sex marriages and allowing sexually active gays and lesbians in the clergy.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted 526-462 to defeat an amendment that would have postponed the decisions from 2005 to 2007.

Members wearing rainbow scarves, signifying support of keeping the timeline on track, hugged one another and cheered after the assembly sang the hymn "I've Got Peace Like a River" after the vote.

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http://www.startribune.com/stories/1557/4046156.html

My pastor was in Milwaukee for this thing. I'm sure she voted to not postpone.
An interesting thing about all this is that by not postponing until after the next election of bishops a lot of the liberal bishops may get the boot as an anti-gay backlash. I hope not, who knows. It is a strange thing, is it better to "pack the pews" with liberal Bishops but hold out on liberal policies or to go for the liberal thing and maybe lose a few Bishops.

cultural and religious shift in this country regarding gays, and it's about time!

Must be something like what it felt like in the 1960s: thrilling and hopeful to some, terrifying to others. Thank goodness America keeps striving, ever-so-fitfully, toward inclusion.

i used to be one. they are good folk.

Those guys are in line with the Southern Baptists for the Uber-Conservative title.

Laura

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's intolerant views are the source of the daily "guilties" for many. Those folks are isolationist, intolerant, bigots who would not share a kind work or a crust with "sinners" dependent, of course, on the contribution in their plate. Hypocrites of the first order - I say no more - just pisses me off!