Mary Albing, Evangelical Lutheran Church’s First Lady-Loving Pastor

This is the Rev. Mary Albing. She’s a Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis, but in the eyes of the governing Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, she never held the post, because she’s a lesbian. That ended yesterday, when Bishop Craig Johnson of the Minneapolis Synod signed “the original Letter of Call that Albing got from the church in 2003. She is believed to be the first lesbian to become a rostered ELCA pastor since the denomination voted last year to accept gays and lesbians in committed relationships.” Here’s to the day when we no longer have to write these posts, because no major religious groups will consider sexual orientation a job qualifier, and all the “first gays” have come and gone.