Hartford Courant welcomes fall in barriers to gay clergy

A Hartford Courant editorial referring to actions of the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

While church leaders and activist members may be ahead of tradition-minded local congregations in some cases, the trend seems obvious — and, to our way of thinking, welcome. Churches will only grow stronger when they do not discriminate in choosing clergy.

As Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, a professor at Claremont School of Theology in California, said, "You can't partition justice."

As these bans fall in tradition-minded private religious institutions, so too should they finally be expunged from the laws and policies of government, which in a democracy is supposed to represent and protect all people. It's time to repeal the discriminatory federal Defense of Marriage Act and the cruel, pointless, harmful "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the U.S. military, which is used to persecute soldiers who happen to be gay.

Read all of the editorial.

Neither the President or the US Congress seems to see any urgency in the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell":

And absent a big push from the Pentagon and Obama, key Senate Democrats are signaling that there is little appetite to anger some of their more socially conservative voters at a time when election forecasters are signaling a tough 2010 election cycle for the party.

Read more at Politico.

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