Lutherans adopt more open view on gays

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By Julia Duin

MINNEAPOLIS | America's largest Lutheran denomination voted Wednesday by the narrowest of margins to approve a theological statement on human sexuality that loosens church teaching on homosexuality despite being spooked by a tornado that touched down within a block of their meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

The 676-338 vote was the exact number of the two-thirds margin needed to pass a policy statement for the 4.8-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

The 34-page document "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" will now be considered as a teaching document for the country's most liberal Lutheran denomination and as a foundation for future church policies.

A few hours before the ELCA's governing body approved the sexuality statement, the gathering was interrupted by a police order to send everyone within the vast convention center into the convention hall because of an approaching twister.

At about 2 p.m., the tornado struck Central Lutheran Church across the street from the convention center, ripping down part of a 90-year-old steel cross atop the church.

Meanwhile, inside the center, ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson read the 121st Psalm -- which talks about God's loving care -- to the nervous assembly.

"We trust the weather is not a commentary on our work," said the Rev. Steven Loy, chairman of the ad hoc committee for the document.

The sexuality statement seeks to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality. Currently, only celibate gays can serve as Lutheran clergy. Moreover, in 1993, ELCA bishops said there is "no basis" in Scripture or church tradition for the blessing of same-sex relationships.

The just-approved sexuality statement takes a different tack, contending that human sexuality is based on "trusting relationships," implying that some homosexual relationships fulfill the criteria.

It also gives people involved in "same-gender relationships [that] are lived out in lifelong and monogamous commitment" a place at the table as one of four views Lutherans have on homosexuality, and says such relationships ought to be "held to the same rigorous standards, sexual ethics and status as heterosexual marriage."