Lutheran draft sidesteps judgment on gay unions

A task force drafting a long-awaited statement on sexuality for the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination has recommended that the church continue to define marriage as a union between a woman and a man.

The panel, in a preliminary report released Thursday, said that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, despite years of study, had yet to reach consensus on same-sex unions. The draft, which did not condemn such unions, also expressed regret that historical Lutheran teachings on homosexuality had sometimes been used to hurt gays and lesbians.

The 50-page report also noted that the church “does not favor” unmarried couples living together but acknowledged social forces behind such arrangements.

The denomination, with 4.8 million members, is among several mainline Protestant churches struggling to reconcile various views of homosexuality and the Bible. Next year, the task force is expected to decide whether to recommend changes to current church policy barring noncelibate gays and lesbians from the clergy.

The “Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality” is intended to guide church members in setting policy and forming judgments about social issues, officials said. After revisions, it will be presented for a vote at the church’s next biennial assembly, in 2009.

A wide-ranging survey of human sexuality, the statement celebrates “this complicated dimension of ourselves,” with all its joys and challenges. “Sexuality can be wondrous and wounding, delightful and destructive, satisfying and confusing . . . sometimes at the same time,” it says.

But the document emphasizes that sexual intimacy should be reserved for married couples, and it condemns promiscuity, sexual exploitation and the abuse of children.

The task force said it had been unable to reach consensus on committed same-sex relationships and would continue to study the issue. Reflecting those divisions, it described different reactions to gays and lesbians in Lutheran congregations, with some parishes requiring celibacy and others urging such couples to establish “mutual, monogamous and lifelong” relationships.

In response, people on both sides of the divide said they were disappointed. The draft “merely tolerates rather than celebrates the presence of same-gender families in the church,” said a statement by Emily Eastwood, executive director of Lutherans Concerned/North America, a gay Lutheran group. “It is inconsistent and insufficient.”

A statement by Mark Chavez, director of the WordAlone Network, which represents theological conservatives, said he feared that the report could be used to let local synods set their own policies on gay clergy.

For his part, Bishop Dean W. Nelson of the church’s Southwest California Synod, which includes Los Angeles, said the document should help Lutherans launch a conversation on the topic. Several hearings are planned for the area in coming months.

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rebecca.trounson@latimes.com