Lutheran leader urges delay on gay issue
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS - A local leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is trying to convince denominational leaders to delay a potentially divisive final vote on homosexuality next year.

Bishop Peter Rogness of the St. Paul Area Synod sent an e-mail to his 425 pastors asking if it would be better to pray about the issue than vote on it. The St. Paul synod is the third-largest in the 5 million-member denomination.

"Can we agree that living with these differing perspectives for a time might be less harmful for the church?" Rogness wrote. "Can we agree that it is more important for us to be a church that prays about these matters than a church that votes about them?"


The ELCA is scheduled to vote at its August 2005 assembly on whether to ordain sexually active gays and authorize an official rite to bless same-sex unions.