ELCA faces ‘profound disagreement’ on homosexuality
By JOE ORSO La Crosse Tribune
Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has thought about homosexuality for much of its 20-year history.

Since the early 1990s, the church has welcomed gay and lesbian people but hasn’t allowed ordination of people in same-sex relationships.

While those policies didn’t change at the 2007 Churchwide Assembly, which ended last weekend in Chicago, the assembly did encourage restraint in enforcing those policies for the time being.

A motion, passed by a 538-431 vote, “prays, urges, and encourages” restraint “in disciplining those congregations and persons who call into the rostered ministry otherwise-qualified candidates who are in a mutual, chaste, and faithful committed same-gender relationship.” the rest