Church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers
Source: The Guardian
Church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 20 May 2013 19.07 BST
The Church of Scotland, the country's largest Protestant church, has narrowly voted to admit gay and lesbian ministers after traditionalists agreed to compromise after four years of division.
The church's ruling general assembly voted to allow congregations to admit gay ministers but only if they specifically elect to do so, in a radical departure from more than 450 years of orthodoxy set in train by the protestant reformer John Knox.
The vote is likely to lead to an end to a four-year controversy which has split the church after an openly gay minister, Scott Rennie, was selected to lead Queen's Cross parish in Aberdeen in 2009.
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The new deal which now has to be written into a new church law and authorised by next year's general assembly - affirms the traditional teaching of the church as favouring heterosexual ministers, but will allow congregations to opt in to select gay ministers if they wish.
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Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/20/church-of-scotland-gay-ministers