Posiblity of a lawsuit for church discrimination

[truckdriver221]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oregon

I am a member of an ELCA church and the governing body has recently voted to allow Gay and Lesbians to be ordained as ministers. Some people in my church are against this. Our governing body says this is ok and we don't need to worry about calling a Gay or Lesbian Pastor. They say we can just write a rule in our church constitution saying we want only heterosexual pastors to be called.

The problem I think I see coming with this in that since the governing body of the ELCA has stated Gay and Lesbian people can be a called pastor, we are opening our local church up to a law suit if we try to discriminate against anyone.

I don't want to get into theological debate or any hate bashing here I just want to find out if our church is going to end up in court.

I think that if a church is going to stay the conservative course and hold that being Gay and Lesbian is against their beliefs then they have to option to hold their pastoral selection to those standards. However if they have taken a more liberal stance and allow Gay and Lesbian people to be pastors on a church government wide basis then the local individual church should not be able to discriminate.

Thanks for the help

Trucker

 

[xylene]

Your churches governing body is engaged in a big old exercise of buck passing - literally.

They are seeking to deffer to the cost of litigating case to those churches who wish to oppose homosexuals to the actual churches that want to engage in homophobia.

And why shouldn't they.

There is no cost involved in accepting gay and lesbians.

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oregon

I am a member of an ELCA church and the governing body has recently voted to allow Gay and Lesbians to be ordained as ministers. Some people in my church are against this. Our governing body says this is ok and we don't need to worry about calling a Gay or Lesbian Pastor. They say we can just write a rule in our church constitution saying we want only heterosexual pastors to be called.

The problem I think I see coming with this in that since the governing body of the ELCA has stated Gay and Lesbian people can be a called pastor, we are opening our local church up to a law suit if we try to discriminate against anyone.

I don't want to get into theological debate or any hate bashing here I just want to find out if our church is going to end up in court.

I think that if a church is going to stay the conservative course and hold that being Gay and Lesbian is against their beliefs then they have to option to hold their pastoral selection to those standards. However if they have taken a more liberal stance and allow Gay and Lesbian people to be pastors on a church government wide basis then the local individual church should not be able to discriminate.

Thanks for the help

Trucker

**A: sounds like fodder for a lawsuit.