Yesterday I wrote about a survey of pastors in mainline liberal denominations and the difference of opinion towards gay marriage when assurances are added to laws exempting churches from having to perform such marriages.
Today I found out a bit more. The 6 churches (in order of their support of gays) are:
United Church of Christ
Episcopal Church
Disciples of Christ
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
United Methodist Church
American Baptist Churches (distinct from Southern Baptist)
These are probably the denominations most familiar to America (only Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists have more members). Alas, they aren't the loudest.
In addition to that bit about the effect of assurances on views of gay marriage, here are some other findings from that survey of clergy from these denominations:
* 79% agree that gays should have the same rights and privileges as everyone else.
* 67% support gay-inclusive hate crime laws.
* 66% support employment non-discrimination laws.
* 55% support adoption by gays.
* 33% support gay marriage and another 32% support civil unions.
This last is not uniform across the 6 denominations. 67% of UCC pastors support gay marriage while only 25% of United Methodist pastors do and only 20% of American Baptist pastors do. The big news is that 45% of clergy are more supportive than they were 10 years ago.
More good news:
* 94% of these pastors say churches should welcome gays into the church.
* 63% say the bible requires full inclusion.
* 51% say the church should not demonize gays.
* 45% say gays should be ordained without restriction.
* 13% of these pastors have lead their congregations to formally become "open and affirming".
These denominations have the potential to be our allies in our civil rights battles.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment