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Bishop Fetes LLGM Board

Abstract: Central Great Lakes Synod Bishop Thorvald Noe-Effingway hosts a dinner party for LLGM luminaries. Political ambitions?

We hear that Bishop Thorvald Noe-Effingway, whose name has become virtually synonymous with strict enforcement of ELCA policy regarding gay clergy, hosted a birthday banquet attended by board members of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries (LLGM) and representatives of the Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP). Our source ("Anthony the waiter") reports that more than two dozen people attended the dinner celebrating birthdays of LLGM board members Greg Egertson and Margaret Moreland. According to Anthony, attendees were generally respectful of the bishop.
A reporter dispatched to the scene was not allowed into the banquet room at the fashionable Downtown restaurant in Berkeley, California, and received less-than-helpful answers from the bishop after the event as he waited outside the restaurant for his car.
As expected, the bishop refused to comment on the disciplinary proceedings against a transgender pastor in the Central Great Lakes Synod. Asked if his overtures to LLGM were in support of a bid to replace Lowell Almen as Secretary of the ELCA, the bishop said "No comment." Neither would he confirm nor deny that the dinner had been paid for with Synod funds.
An unidentified LLGM Board member later remarked that the bishop "seemed not to understand" that LLGM and Lutherans Concerned / North America were distinct organizations. "Basically, LLGM is a mission society, and we really don't do much lobbying at assemblies. I think he thought we were goodsoil or something. Nice dinner, though."
It remains to be seen how supporters of Bishop Noe-Effingway's political ambitions will react to his overtures to the Lutheran LGBT Community.

(Vol. I, xvi, February 19, 2007 )

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