GREENVILLE -- Local Lutherans have urged the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America not to adopt proposals that would allow local option on the ordination of ministers in lifelong, monogamous same-sex relationships.

Opponents of gay ordination argued that it violated biblical teaching and church tradition, and that local option would fracture the denomination if clergy who were accepted in one congregation or synod could not serve in another.

"If we were to adopt these proposals, we would create a situation where we don't have full communion within the ELCA," said the Rev. David Gleason, of First Lutheran Church of Pittsburgh, Downtown, referring to the sort of barriers that typically divide denominations from each other. "We would, in fact, be instituting a broken church."

The 430 laity and clergy who voted at the assembly at Thiel College represent 85,000 members in 201 congregations of the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is one of 65 synods in the 4.9 million-member denomination, which will hold its churchwide assembly Aug. 17-23 in Minneapolis.

The proposals for local option on gay ordination are related to a proposed social statement on many aspects of sexuality that a task force took years to develop. The ordination recommendations acknowledge that the denomination is deeply divided over whether gay relationships are sinful and asks those on both sides to respect those who differ and to live in peace with each other.

Yesterday's synod acted on four proposals related to the upcoming national debate. The first, which passed quickly and overwhelmingly, asked for the proposed changes to ministry policy to require a two-thirds vote, rather than a simple majority. Supporters noted that a denominational legal commission and two-thirds of the bishops had also asked for the two-thirds vote.

The second proposal called on the national assembly to reject the proposals for local option on partnered gay clergy. "If we abandon scripture, we have relativized everything," said the Rev. Philip Gustafson, pastor of Reformation and St. Paul churches in Vangergrift.

In a show of hands, at least 90 percent of those voting supported the call to reject the proposed changes.

But the next vote, to reject the new social statement on sexuality and affirm those of two of the predecessor denominations that merged into the ELCA in 1988, was closer. Some people argued that they had never read the earlier documents and, thus, shouldn't vote on them.

The Rev. Richard Krug, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church, North Versailles, and a persistent advocate for gay people in the church, said Christians had often changed their understanding of biblical teaching about matters such as slavery or divorce.

"Maybe God can speak through others who are no longer willing to be condemned ... and put down for who they are as human beings, even as they struggle within the church," he said.

The assembly voted 219-123 to urge the national church to reject the social statement.

They also effectively nullified a proposal to allow congregations that may be upset by the national church actions to divert their expected gifts for national mission to a local synod fund instead. Southwestern Pennsylvania has a proud tradition of mission giving. It is one of the three most generous synods in the nation, alongside West Virginia and Northwestern Pennsylvania, despite having much smaller congregations than synods in the Midwest or even Central and Eastern Pennsylvania.

"Is this what we are going to do? Stop feeding the poor?" asked the Rev. Wayne Gillespie, pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church in Latrobe, just before the vote to affirm a modified proposal, which praised mission giving and eliminated the paragraph about diverting money.