MINNEAPOLIS — The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination took openly gay clergy more fully into its fold Friday, as leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to lift a ban that prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian people from serving as ministers. Under the new policy, individual ELCA congregations will be allowed to hire homosexuals as clergy as long as they are in a committed relationships. Until now, gays and lesbians had to remain celibate to serve as clergy. The change passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA’s national assembly. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance. ‘I have seen these same-gender relationships function in the same way as heterosexual relationships – bringing joy and blessings as well as trials and hardships,’ the Rev. Leslie Williamson, associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Des Plaines, Illinois, said during the hours of debate. ‘The same-gender couples I know live in love and faithfulness and are called to proclaim the word of God as are all of us.’ Conservative congregations will […]