Lutherans Welcome Reinstated Gay Pastors

Seven gay and transgender pastors in California who were barred from serving in the Lutheran Church were reinstated in a ceremony on Sunday.

The pastors, all from the San Francisco Bay area, were folded back into the church a year after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America decided to allow gay pastors serve as clergy. The church previously only allowed gays to serve if they adhered to a vow of celibacy. The "Bay Area Seven" were Jeff Johnson, Megan Rohrer, Paul Brenner, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski, Sharon Stalkfleet, and Ross Merkel, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 1990 two San Francisco churches saw the policy as discriminatory and ordained Johnson and a lesbian couple. The churches, First United and St. Frances, were then expelled from the denomination.