Significant news today about the rapidly progressing movement in U.S. faith communities to support the human rights of gay and lesbian persons: the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has just voted to ordain openly gay ministry candidates in committed relationships. As I noted two years ago, when a narrow majority of the church's presbyteries turned down a similar proposal, a shift was already underway the last time the church voted on this issue. And so it is not surprising that a majority of presbyteries has now voted to approve ordination of openly gay partnered candidates for ministry. A great deal is changing quickly on this front among people of faith in the U.S. today, and the shift in this major Protestant denomination (following on the heels of a similar decision by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) in a mere two years demonstrates the quickness of the change.
