The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is meeting this week in Minneapolis, plans to decide whether to approve a proposal that would allow individual congregations to let gay and lesbian people in committed relationships serve as clergy.

Delegates plan to take an early vote on the issue Monday, when they will decide whether to require a simple majority or a two-thirds supermajority to pass the proposal.

The final vote on the proposal is not expected until Friday.

The 1,045 delegates gathered at the Minneapolis Convention Center also will consider a broader statement on human sexuality, a 34-page document that tries to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality. Critics say it would simply liberalize the ELCA’s attitudes. A vote on the document is scheduled for Wednesday.

At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA would be one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy.

In 2003, the 2 million-member Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, deepening a long-running rift over homosexuality in the worldwide Anglican Communion and leading to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.

The fight for marriage equality in DC has, thus far, played out as you might expect. The anti-gay forces have explicitly sought to divide the city on lines of race and faith, and tried to broadcast the message that while white, liberal activists might like the gays, “real Washingtonians” are good, god-fearing people that won’t stand for any change in the institution of marriage.

That’s an effective message, or at least it could be, if it were true.

Fortunately for our side, their argument doesn’t hold up under any scrutiny, and 135 members of the DC clergy took a stand yesterday to show just how inaccurate it is.

Under the name Clergy for Marriage, the more than 130 members of the clergy representing dozens of churches and synogogues have joined together to demonstrate that not all people of faith believe in inequality and injustice.

Moreover, the declaration that they’ve jointly signed asserts that it is because of, rather that in spite of, their faith that they are supportive of marriage equality.

We are District of Columbia clergy and religious leaders of many faiths, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. We represent religious institutions in every ward in the District. We have worked together over many years for peace and justice and now join our voices again to speak a faithful word for freedom and equality.

We declare that our faith calls us to affirm marriage equality for loving same-sex couples.

Our religious traditions and scriptures teach us that wherever love is present, God is also present. One of God’s greatest gifts to us is our human capacity to love one another. The ability of two people to enter into relationships and form families of love and care is one expression of this gift. It is holy and good. We therefore affirm the right of loving same-gender couples to enter into such relationships on an equal basis with loving heterosexual couples.

We recognize that there are principled differences on this issue within the religious community. We affirm that the state should not require any religious group to officiate at, or bless, same-gender marriages. However, the state also should not favor the convictions of one religious group over another by denying individuals their fundamental civil right to marry whom they love.

Recognizing that there is heartfelt disagreement on this issue, we call on all people of the District of Columbia to engage in a respectful and loving dialogue on marriage equality. As religious leaders, we commit ourselves to such a dialogue and encourage our colleagues on all sides of this issue to do the same.

God is love and love is for everyone. In this spirit we raise our voices in the struggle for the right and freedom to marry.

I don’t identify as a person of faith, but I certainly understand the importance of faith leaders and people of faith to our movement. Clergy for Marriage is a very important step toward marriage equality here in the District, and I think this will be seen as a turning point once we’ve won the fight.

It is the second time the lobbying effort known as Clergy Call has been held on Capitol Hill – the first event was held two years ago. Both have been sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign.

Conservative Christian groups have regularly fought all efforts to pass LGBT legislation.  Wednesday’s Clergy Call is an effort to show that not all religious leaders support that agenda. 

The 325 religious leaders taking part in Clergy Call this year represent Christians, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims.

At the top of the list of legislation being pushed by the clergy is an expansion of federal hate crime law whichwould include sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. The legislation was passed by the House last week and is pending in the Senate.

HRC spokesperson Harry Knox said the clergy is “here out of a pastoral concern for real people in their congregations who have to deal with the ramifications of hate violence.”

They also are pushing for passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing and employment. A bill is expected to be introduced later this summer.

Additionally, they support repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the ban on gays serving openly in the military, and the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the government from recognizing same-sex relationships.

President Obama has signaled his support of all four bills.

Among the clergy on the Hill is Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop from New Hampshire, who delivered the invocation during a kickoff concert at the Lincoln Memorial for President Obama’s inauguration.

In launching Clergy Call on Monday night at Calvary Baptist Church in downtown Washington, Robinson said that religious conservatism “still presents the greatest obstacles we face in full equality.

“Ninety-five percent of the oppression that we know in our lives comes from the religious community,” he said.

But the Minneapolis Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially lists Calvary’s ministry as vacant. That’s because, sitting with Froslee’s family at his installation ceremony in February, was his male partner of 5 1/2 years – living proof that Froslee has flouted the ELCA’s prohibition on non-celibate gay pastors.

“What I heard from the members of the church’s call committee was that from the first meeting, they knew I was the one meant to be their pastor,” said Froslee, 35. “I’ve always felt called to this process, and that in a sense God has a guiding hand in this. So I always had a sense it would work out.”

But to make it work, Froslee and the church and synod leaders are operating on what church council member Brian Aust called “the margins of the ELCA.” It’s an arrangement that could be formalized this August, when leaders of the ELCA – the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination with 4.7 million members – meet for their biannual convention in Minneapolis.

An ELCA task force has recommended a policy that would let congregations decide whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as their clergy. The resolution has been criticized from both directions, with liberals saying it doesn’t go far enough and conservatives saying it conflicts with Scripture.

“This isn’t about sex,” said the Rev. Mark Chavez of Landisville, Pa., the director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of conservative groups in the ELCA. “It’s finally about the authority of God’s word.”

But the approach envisioned by the task force is already in practice at Calvary Lutheran, a modest 70-year-old brown brick church in a racially diverse neighborhood four miles south of downtown Minneapolis. The 120-member congregation is a mix of young families and single people, middle-aged couples and older established members, and is mostly white despite the surrounding neighborhood.

“In the City for Good,” reads a banner on the front of the church, a symbol of Calvary’s mission of social justice and outreach to distressed communities. When it came time last year to replace the married couple who served as co-pastors the last 13 years, Calvary’s lay leaders wanted someone who would help realize that mission.

“We’re a church that’s serious about being real about issues of crime and poverty and racial and social injustice,” said Josh Moberg, a stay-at-home dad who’s president of the church council. “And Brad had experience working with diverse and poor communities. The identities seemed like a good fit.”

Froslee grew up in the tiny western Minnesota town of Vining, a region still heavily populated by descendants of the German and Scandinavian settlers who helped establish a Lutheran presence in the United States. His family had a long tradition of involvement in their church, and Froslee grew up on a steady diet of Sunday school and church camp.

A high school overachiever, Froslee kept his love of the church into college. But he planned for law school after realizing from a pretty early age “that I was different and didn’t really fit the mold when it came to sexuality,” he said.

In college at St. Olaf in Northfield, a theology professor told Froslee his work had uncommon insight and asked why he wasn’t considering the ministry.

“I hemmed and hawed for quite a while, and then finally I said I don’t think there’s a place for me in the church because I’m gay,” Froslee said. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Brad, that’s a cop-out.’ And that I think really became kind of a turning point for me in terms of my journey.”

Froslee came out to his family while in college, and sharpened his scriptural understanding at Harvard Divinity School. He says he never concealed his sexuality while going through the ordination process, and also made it known his desire to someday find a lifelong partner.

Before joining Calvary, Froslee served as pastor at a Presbyterian church in Minnetonka through a pact between the two denominations. He’s also been an activist on issues of homosexuality and Christianity, co-founding a summer camp for gay, Christian youth. And even after meeting his partner, he stayed on the ELCA’s roster of pastors eligible to serve in Lutheran congregations – which got his name in front of the Calvary committee looking for the new pastor.

Aust, an attorney who chaired that committee, said Calvary wasn’t looking for trouble. “Our simple motivation was find the best person, gay or straight. It wasn’t about labels,” he said.

The Minneapolis Synod of the ELCA signed off on the arrangement, but lists Calvary’s ministry as vacant. “We viewed it as a decision for the congregation to make,” said Minneapolis Synod Bishop Craig Johnson.

Froslee and church council members said there are few real ramifications to the vacant designation, save that Froslee can’t vote at synod assemblies. But from a symbolic standpoint, they said, it’s not ideal.

“It’s sort of don’t ask, don’t tell,” said Moberg, the church council president. “It’s not necessarily the way we’d like it to be.”

Not every gay pastor has been as fortunate as Froslee. In Atlanta in 2007, the Rev. Bradley Schmeling was kicked off the ELCA roster entirely after acknowledging he had a partner – a decision that helped precipitate the ELCA’s attempt to find a middle ground. Just a few miles away from Calvary at Salem Lutheran Church, the Rev. Jen Nagel, also partnered, has been kept off the ELCA roster – putting her congregation even further on the ELCA margin than Calvary.

Rev. Peter Strommen, a pastor from Prior Lake, Minn., who led the task force that proposed the policy change, said it’s an attempt to officially recognize the lack of consensus across the ELCA.

With rapid social change on gay rights even in recent weeks, including the sudden legalization of gay marriage in Vermont and Iowa, he said the Lutheran church must find a way to proceed amid strongly divergent viewpoints.

“We’ve tried to stress here that this is not a core issue of our faith,” Strommen said. “It’s important. But it doesn’t get to the level of the risen Christ and salvation.”

The denomination will vote in August on a recommendation to allow individual congregations to decide whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy.

Gays and lesbians can now serve as clergy in the ELCA if they remain celibate, although some congregations have challenged the system and hired pastors in gay relationships. Heterosexual clergy and professional lay workers are to abstain from sex outside marriage.

The proposed change would cover those in “lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

A Lutheran group of clergy, calling itself CORE, opposed to opening up their ranks asked the council to impose rule that the motion be adopted only by a two-thirds majority.

At a meeting this week the council voted 21-10 with two abstentions to allow for a simple majority.

“Sad to say, we saw this coming,” the Rev. W. Stevens Shipman, a CORE spokesperson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Shipman said his group would try to revive the issue at the denomination’s convention when it meets in Minneapolis from August 17 – 23. The gay clergy motion is on the agenda for the convention and Shipman said he hopes the voting rule can be tightened before the issue is decided.

“We think a decision of this importance needs to be approved by two-thirds of the membership, and we will try to get the synods that agree with that to address the issue with the assembly,” he told The Star Tribune.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has about 4.7 million members.

Gerald B. Kieschnick, in a letter to his 2.5 million-member denomination, said the change “would constitute a radical departure from the 2,000-year-long teaching of the Christian tradition that homosexual activity, whether inside or outside of a committed relationship, is contrary to Holy Scripture.”

In 2001, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod adopted a resolution saying it does not consider the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to be “an orthodox Lutheran church body” but recognizes that many members of the larger denomination “remain faithful” to the Christian Gospel.

Last week, a task force of the 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued a series of recommendations that could lead to lifting a ban on non-celibate gay clergy.

The task force acknowledged a lack of consensus on the issue and proposed that congregations and synods, or regional church bodies, be given “structured flexibility” to decide whether to hire people in “lifelong, monogamous, same-gender committed relationships” as clergy.

The recommendations, which may be revised in the coming months, will be considered at the denomination’s biannual convention in Minneapolis this August.

Assistant Bishop Henry Scriven said the vote means the Pittsburgh diocese is now more firmly aligned with the majority of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, which is more conservative than the communion’s 2.2 million-member U.S. church.

“I am delighted,” Scriven said, “that what we have done today is bringing the Diocese of Pittsburgh back into the mainstream of worldwide Anglicanism.”

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the U.S. church, criticized the vote in a statement, saying, “There is room in this Church for all who desire to be members of it.”

She also said schism is not an “honored tradition within Anglicanism” and is “frequently been seen as a more egregious error than charges of heresy.”

The votes were 240 in favor of leaving the church and 102 against. Eight voters either abstained or cast disqualified ballots.

The Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno, Calif., was the first to leave the national church, in 2006. Dioceses based in Quincy, Ill., and Fort Worth, Texas, also are set to vote next month on leaving.

The Pittsburgh diocese was led for 11 years by Bishop Robert Duncan. He was removed from office by the national church’s House of Bishops last month.

Many who opposed the split said the national church erred by disciplining Duncan before the vote. The Rev. James Simons – pastor of one of at least 16 Pittsburgh-area churches that plan not to break away – said it “created enormous sympathy” for those voting to split.

Duncan is among the leaders of a national network of theological conservatives who are breaking away from the liberal denomination in a dispute over Scripture. The long-simmering debate, similar to others going on in the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran denominations, erupted in 2003, when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Clergy and lay members on both sides of the aisle were impassioned before Saturday’s vote. Several opposed to splitting from the national church acknowledged disagreeing with its more liberal teachings – including a more “inclusive” salvation that doesn’t rely on Christ’s crucifixion alone. But many said staying in the church was the only way to remedy those teachings.

The Rev. Philip Wainwright, an Episcopal priest who opposed the split, said the personal salvation of those who remain in the national church is not compromised by its more liberal teachings, which can be changed only by remaining in the church.

“If the gates of hell cannot prevail against this church, then a gay bishop and those who consecrated him cannot, either,” Wainwright said.

But those voting to leave argued they’re not being extreme, just faithful to biblical teachings.

“The church became as gray as the culture,” said Alison McFarland, who voted for the split. “Undefined Christianity became the problem, and now the church is indistinguishable from the world.”

Pittsburgh diocesan spokesman, the Rev. Peter Frank, said the breakaway diocese is led by a standing committee that is formally expected to elect Duncan as its bishop in November.

The breakaway diocese will align with the like-minded Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America, which already recognizes Duncan as a bishop and has welcomed the San Joaquin diocese into its fold.

Conservatives like Duncan and the Pittsburgh diocese are in the minority of the U.S. church but constitute a majority in the Anglican Communion.

Duncan expects more than two-thirds of the Pittsburgh-area’s 74 congregations to be part of the breakaway diocese. Some congregations may end up splitting themselves over the issue, Duncan said.

Simons said a standing committee governs the parishes that remain in the Episcopal Church and will probably select an interim bishop before the end of the year.

Still unsettled is who owns the property of parishes remaining in the church.

Duncan said some parish properties are owned by the diocese and others by the congregations, although the diocese may have invested money in some of those. Duncan has pledged to negotiate fairly with parishes that wish to remain in the national church; he and Simons said they hope to avoid litigation.