Norway's first lesbian pastor gives up

  Norway's first lesbian pastor gives up

Norway's first woman pastor to enter into a same-sex civil union quit her ministry to protest against the discrimination gays and lesbians face within the Lutheran Church,she said in an interview. "It has become untenable for me to represent a Church where parts of it are still quite exclusionary," Hilde Raastad told the daily aftenposten. In 1997,she become the first woman pastor in Norway to tie the knot in a civil partnership with another woman.Ten years later,the Church officially authorised the ordination of gays,but gave bishops and clerical authorities in charge of recruitment the right to refuse a ministry to a person living in a same-sex civil union.
  Raastad said she had been refused several positions even though she was sometimes the only candidate,and  said she had sent a letter to Oslo Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme asking him to annual her ordination.