GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) – A lesbian priest says she wants to start a dialogue with church leaders after the Episcopal bishop of North Dakota refused her request for a license to minister in the state.

The Rev. Gayle Baldwin, 62, an associate professor of religion at the University of North Dakota, was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1980. She came out as a lesbian a decade ago in Wyoming, where she has a license to preach and administer the sacraments. She came to UND in 2000.

Baldwin went public this week with a letter Episcopal leaders explaining her request to be licensed in North Dakota.

The Episcopal Church’ consecration in 2003 of the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, led to division in the church and several dozen conservative U.S. parishes have split from the national denomination.

“I have been clear from the beginning what my expectations are,” said Bishop Michael Smith, head of the 3,000 Episcopalians in North Dakota. “That is fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those not called to marriage.”

Smith said it is “a confused time,” for the Episcopal Church as the issue is debated, and he is upholding what the church always has taught.

Baldwin said she was ordained 28 years ago, long before she identified herself as a lesbian. Her bishop in Wyoming has been very supportive of her, she said. She agreed to stop working there as a priest when she came out as a lesbian, she said, after meeting the woman she believes God called her to love.

For several years, she has led a nondenominational group called the “Potting Shed” in homes and the Women’s Center at UND, she said. Its members, gay and straight, have felt marginalized by traditional denominations, she said.

Bishop Smith “needs to be challenged,” on the issue of denying her a license to do what God called and what the church already has ordained her to do, Baldwin said.

“I am trying to be faithful to the scriptures and trying to be faithful to the tradition of the church, while at the same time being open to what God might be doing in a new way,” Smith said. “We are in a period of discernment. It’s not an issue of civil rights.”

The bishop said 28 priests and 21 deacons serve the 3,000 Episcopalians in 21 congregations across North Dakota.

“We are mostly a diocese of moderately conservative and moderately liberal people,” Smith said. “We are not of one mind on the issue, so it’s much more important for me to be consistent with the policy.”

In her letter to Episcopal leaders, Baldwin said the bishop, in refusing to acknowledge her ordination, also is refusing to acknowledge her baptism.

“If a bishop can do this to one, then anyone is potentially at risk. This is why I am writing this open letter to all so that we might begin a dialogical conversation over this matter,” she said.