8/17-23/2009 - The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) held its (biennial) 11th Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, MN. The major item on its docket was the Social Statement “of "Human Sexuality, Gift and Trust." Human sexuality pertaining to homosexuality had been an active topic for the past 20 years. On 8/19/2009 a tornado struck and damaged the Central Lutheran Church building in downtown Minneapolis as well as the Minneapolis Convention Center - the ELCA was holding its convention in both places that day. A vote on the Social Statement was scheduled to take place promptly at 2 PM. Because of a tornado warning, the vote was delayed but passed later that day as amended by a vote of 676-338: precisely the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The Statement was in essence a Solomonic decision which permitted individual congregations to either bless homosexual unions or reject them.
On 8/21/2009, church delegates voted to allow congregations to call and ordain gays and lesbians in committed monogamous relationships to serve as clergy by a vote of 559 to 451. Congregations were granted the choice whether to call homosexuals or not. The ELCA became the 3rd mainline American Protestant denomination, after TEC and the UCC, to approve homosexual ordination.
...sow the wind: reap the whirlwind...