Episcopalians will ordain admitted lesbian as priest

• Los Angeles Times

An avowed lesbian will be among 30 women entering the Episcopal priesthood this month..

Ellen Marie Barrett, 30, now working on a doctorate in social ethics at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., will be ordained Monday night in New York City by Bishop Paul Moore.

Ms. Barrett will be only the second publicly known homosexual to be ordained to the clergy by a major Christian denomination in recent years. The Rev. William Johnson was ordained as a United Church of Christ minister in 1972 by an association of UCC churches in the San Francisco Bay area.

Ms. Barrett said she didn't think

her sexual orientation would create much additional controversy in the 3 million-member church. Its national convention approved women's ordination to the priesthood, effective Jan. 1, last September. But dissent has continued over the issue.

"I have to feel that most opponents are so incensed about us being female that my being gay, if it comes up, will be sort of a footnote," she said in an interview.

Ms. Barrett said that "all the business about being gay" had been talked about when she was ordained a deacon (a preliminary step to the priesthood) in December 1975 by Moore, bishop of the New York diocese.

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