quote:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A man who left his Presbyterian ministry in California more than 20 years ago after telling his congregation that he is gay was welcomed back into the church leadership as its first openly gay ordained minister.

In a quavering voice ripe with emotion, 56-year-old Scott Anderson on Saturday told the hundreds of friends and backers who packed Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin for his ordination ceremony that he never thought the day would come.

"To the thousands of Presbyterians who have worked and prayed for almost 40 years for this day, I give thanks," Anderson said. "And I give thanks for those who disagree with what we're doing today yet who know that we are one in Jesus Christ."

When he was presented to the crowd, audience members gave him a thunderous standing ovation and began roaring with cheers.

"That was very atypical of Presbyterians," Doug Poland, an elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church, told the Wisconsin State Journal. "Usually our hands are in our laps."

Anderson was closeted when he served as a minister in Sacramento, Calif., from 1983 until 1990. When a couple threatened to reveal his sexual orientation, he came out to his congregation and resigned because the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) barred homosexuals from serving as ministers.