Religious Views On Same-Sex Marriage Have Radically
Changed
04/27/2015
Carol
Kuruvilla [email protected]
When Massachusetts became the first state to
legalize same-sex marriage in 2003, America's major
religious denominations didn’t offer much
support.
Now, more than a decade later, religious attitudes
toward LGBT rights have shifted dramatically. Not only are people
of faith more vocal about their support for marriage equality, but
they are, at times, willing to contradict official church doctrine
to express those views.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court
is scheduled to
hear oral arguments from a group of cases that challenge same-sex
marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
The Public Religion Research
Institute recently used data from its
American Values Atlas to determine where America’s major religious
groups now stand on the issue.
The major religious groups that showed the strongest
support were Buddhists (84 percent) and Jews (77 percent).
Religiously unaffiliated Americans were 77 percent in favor, while
Americans who identified as being from an “other religion” were 75
percent in favor.
Sixty-two percent of white mainline Protestants were
also supportive of allowing same-sex partners to tie the
knot.
Jay Michaelson, a gay Buddhist writer and activist,
believes American Buddhists came out at the top of the list because
of the community’s demographics. He said that over half of American
Buddhists are converts who tend to be liberal, highly educated and
white.
But he thinks it's another demographic
characteristic that is key to how LGBT couples will be treated in
the future.
“I think demographics will be more powerful than
doctrine,” Michaelson told HuffPost in an email. “Yes, a national
right to marry confirms that gay people are people; 'gay marriage'
is not some separate thing from marriage -- it's marriage. But if
you look at the data, it tilts on a generational axis. Younger
people do not understand what the big deal is here. That's true for
white evangelicals, Catholics, and even those in the Black
Protestant world.”
Despite the Catholic
Church’s prohibitive stance, the
Public Religion Research Institute did find that the majority of
both white and Hispanic Catholics were in favor of legalizing
same-sex marriage.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the
Catholic LGBT advocacy group New Ways Ministry, said
that American Catholics see marriage equality as a social justice
issue. Since Catholics have come to know more LGBT people in their
workplaces, neighborhoods and churches, it’s becoming increasingly
difficult for them to justify why LGBT couples should be treated
differently.
“[American Catholics] want to protect the rights,
dignity, and equality of lesbian and gay couples, and they want to
protect their families,” DeBernardo told HuffPost in an email.
“American Catholics support same-sex marriage because they are
Catholic, not in spite of being Catholic."
Gay marriage still hasn’t found much support among
more conservative religious traditions -- Jehovah’s Witnesses (75
percent), Mormons (68 percent) and white evangelical Protestants
(66 percent) were all against the idea.
Meanwhile, faith-based advocacy groups have helped
churches embrace same-sex couples. Within the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) for example, groups like More Light
Presbyterians and
the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians worked for years to push
for change within their congregations. Earlier this year, the PC
(USA) announced a
change to its constitution that describes marriage as being
"between two people."
James Rowe, the director
of Believe Out Loud, an
online network that maps churches that welcome LGBT Christians and
their allies, said he's certain that the Catholic Church will be
one of the last Christian denominations to affirm LGBT couples. A
Catholic himself, Rowe added that he refuses to give up
hope.
"A ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage will
continually challenge our more conservative denominations to define
what it means to be followers of Christ," Rowe told HuffPost in an
email.