Lutherans drop celibacy rule for gay pastors, welcome some back to service

SAN FRANCISCO — Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay Area and were barred from serving in the nation's largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church but later reinstated will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last August to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships.

A few congregations voted to leave the ELCA in response to the August vote.

Jeff Johnson, one of the pastors who will participate in Sunday's rite of reception service and will be added to the roster, said the ELCA's position for years of not accepting the choice of some congregations to ordain gay clergy was painful and disappointing.

"The actions the church is taking on Sunday affirms the decisions of those congregations," Johnson, pastor of the University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, said. "The church is respecting our family, our partners, the choices we're making."

Another participant, Megan Rohrer, said she hopes the service will be a "symbol" to young people that the Lutheran Church is becoming more welcoming of people of all different backgrounds.