Lutherans to Allow Sexually Active Gays As Clergy

Leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran church voted Friday to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Gays and lesbians are currently allowed to serve as ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America only if they remain celibate. The proposal to change that passed with 68 percent approval.

At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA is one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy.

The final decision on whether to hire gay clergy in committed relationships will lie with individual congregations.

Some critics of the proposal have predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to split off from the ELCA, as has been the case with other Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church.

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Israel Trying To Boost Image With Gays?

The sun was just beginning to sink into the Mediterranean as the couples took their places under the fluttering wedding canopy: three sets of brides and two sets of grooms.

In a nod to Jewish wedding tradition, a member of each couple stepped on a glass to seal the deal. Except in this wedding the centuries-old words that finalize the Jewish marriage contract were uttered with a twist: “If I forget thee, O Tel Aviv, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Tel Aviv above my highest joy.”

Replacing the traditional “Jerusalem” with “Tel Aviv” was a pronounced statement in Israel’s first municipal gay wedding ceremony and reflected the fact that it only could have taken place in Tel Aviv, the most open and liberal of Israel’s cities.

The wedding, although just symbolic because the marriages are not recognized by the state, was seen as a sign of how far Israel’s gay community has come since its coming-out as a tiny movement in 1974, when a handful of activists wearing masks marched in front of Tel Aviv City Hall demanding equal rights.

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Obama Declares June LGBT Pride Month

In a presidential proclamation on the White House website, Barack Obama has lauded what he calls “the determination and dedication” of the LGBT movement by proclaiming June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.”

President Barack H. Obama”The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress,” Obama states in the official proclamation, “but there is more to be done. LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect.”

The proclamation, released on Monday, credits the LGBT movement with being a factor in more Americans who ascribe to those groups “living their lives openly today than ever before.”

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Push is on for First Gay Justice On Supreme Court

Gay and lesbian organizations are encouraging President Obama to nominate the country’s first gay justice to the U.S. Supreme Court — a move one conservative watchdog group lambasts as “identity politics gone wild.”

In an article titled “Out lesbian a contender for Supreme Court nomination,” GayPolitics.com suggests Stanford Law professor Kathleen Sullivan is a top candidate for the job.

Sullivan, a former dean of the university’s law school, is founder and director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, which hosts conferences and lectures.

The Law Center’s Web site states that it places a special emphasis on “individuals’ speech and privacy rights and the structural separation of powers within our system of government.”

Sullivan has filed several briefs with appeals courts in gay-rights cases.

Another gay Stanford law professor, Pam Karlan, is also being mentioned, Politico.com reports.

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Christian College Creates Homosexual Housing

The church-affiliated Texas Christian Read more