The Presbyterian Church USA voted to allow gays and lesbians to be ordained ministers or lay leaders, becoming the fourth Protestant church in it.
The decisive vote on Tuesday ended a three-decade debate launched by a regional group in Minnesota (north), Los Angeles Times reported .
With this decision, the Presbyterian Church joins the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran and United Church of Christ, which allow gays to serve openly as ministers and lay leaders.
The measure, however, allow regional organizations to decide the issue themselves.
"This is an important moment in the Christian community," said Michael Adee, a Presbyterian elder who runs an organization that fought for the ordination of homosexuals.
"I am pleased that the Presbyterians are putting the focus on the most important, faith and character, not on a person's marital status or sexual orientation."
The change in the constitution of the Presbyterian Church was approved last summer by the General Assembly of the church, his body rector.
But according to church rules, these changes must be ratified by a majority of 173 regional organizations known as presbyteries.
Tuesday night at a meeting in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Twin Cities Presbytery became the regional body 87 vote "Yes", said Los Angeles Times.
The vote reflects the change in attitude in recent years as more Americans support the integration of homosexuals in institutions that banned for many years as the military.
Linda Fleming, an elderly deacon in the Presbyterian Church Knox in Ladera Heights, California, said he was among those who had changed his mind.
"Finally I decided at 63 that is inevitable," he said, while adding: "I think it's like letting black people come to white churches, or allow women to be ministers."
Congress passed late last year that homosexuals could join openly in the Armed Forces, reversing the commitment Do not Ask, Do not Tell 1993 that gay soldiers required to withhold their sexual orientation .
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