Free Republic

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Leaders of the country's largest Lutheran denomination have moved toward a more welcoming view of homosexuality. Delegates of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Minneapolis, approved a "social statement on human sexuality" on Wednesday that acknowledges differing views on homosexuality among congregations. It says the ELCA is strong enough to accommodate such differences.

Episcopal Church leaders in Los Angeles today nominated an openly gay priest and an openly lesbian priest as bishops, becoming one of the first dioceses in the national church to test a controversial new policy that lifted a de facto ban on gays and lesbians in the ordained hierarchy. The nominations of the Rev. John L. Kirkley of San Francisco and the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool of a Baltimore-based diocese are likely to further inflame theological conservatives in the U.S. church and their global partners in the Anglican Communion, who have repeatedly warned about the repercussions of such action....

Durham, N.C. — Duke University has fired an employee who faces federal child sex charges. Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, was let go from his position as associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke, a spokesman said. Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld said Lombard was placed on unpaid leave at the time of his arrest June 24 and was fired Monday. Schoenfeld added that the university was cooperating with the investigation. Lombard faces extradition to Washington, D.C., to face charges that he solicited an adult to have...

At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about President Bush having sent a congratulatory letter to a denomination founded by homosexual activists that performs more than 6,000 same-sex "weddings" each year, not long after endorsing "Marriage Protection Week." WND: Scott, WorldNetDaily reports that just after the president proclaimed marriage to be "a union between a man and a woman," the Metropolitan Community Churches, which perform 6,000 same-sex nuptial ceremonies a year, received a letter from the president congratulating them for "encouraging the celebration of faith and sharing of God's love." And my question: Since...