In reply to Tyler D. Andersen.

As a person who IS gay, I completely disagree.

I despise the ELCA because their message is that I must give up my values and my trust in the Bible as God's Word in order to follow my sexual orientation.

Well, God did NOT promise I would be able to have a boy friend. He DID promise eternal life and, in this life, a cross. Should I reject him just because I don't happen to like the kind of cross I got? Just because its something I got stuck with because our genes have been infected by the fall?

As to the LCMS making homosexuals feel inferior, yes, you are right and this is the sin of the LCMS. (the fault, however, is not in preaching that homosexuality is sin but in failing to preach that heterosexuality is sin too - not just adultery, lust or fornication but the orientation of attraction to opposite sex people other than one's spouse. This, too, is profoundly unnatural and perverted - we need to start preaching that and give straight people the opportunity to know they too are twisted in their sexuality from what God designed.)

But the sin of the ELCA is that it strips my dignity to choose my values over my sexuality and strips the comfort and power of God's Word.

Given that there is no perfect denomination, I will choose the one that offers me eternal life rather than sex. It will last longer and be a whole lot more fun.