{"id":1257,"date":"2013-08-15T07:22:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T07:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/the-quiet-gay-rights-revolution-in-americas-churches.html"},"modified":"2013-08-15T07:22:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T07:22:00","slug":"the-quiet-gay-rights-revolution-in-americas-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/the-quiet-gay-rights-revolution-in-americas-churches.html","title":{"rendered":"The Quiet Gay-Rights Revolution in America’s Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
For most gay Americans in the 20th century, the church was a place of pain. It cast them out and called them evil. It cleaved them from their families. It condemned their love and denied their souls. In 2004, a president was elected when religious voters surged from their pews to vote against the legal recognition of gay relationships. When it came to gay rights, religion was the enemy.<\/span><\/div>\n

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A decade later, the story is very different. Congregations across the country increasingly accept, nurture, and even marry their gay brethren. Polls show majorities of major Christian denominations \u2014 including American Catholics, despite their church\u2019s staunch opposition \u2014 support legal gay marriage. Leaders of some of the most conservative sects, like the Southern Baptists, have moved away from the vitriolic rhetoric of yesteryear and toward a more compassionate tone. Mormons\u00a0march<\/a>\u00a0in gay-pride parades. A sitting Republican senator, a Methodist from the heartland state of Ohio, says the question was settled for him by \u201cthe Bible\u2019s overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God.\u201d A new pope\u00a0says<\/a>, \u201cIf someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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The votes, too, are going differently these days.\u00a0Ballot measures<\/a>,\u00a0state legislatures<\/a>, and\u00a0Supreme Court decisions<\/a>\u00a0testify to a new public consensus on gay marriage, the political issue that currently serves as the chief proxy for attitudes toward gay rights and acceptance.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Gradually, and largely below the radar, religious Americans have powered this momentous shift. In 2004, just 36 percent of Catholics, the Christian sect most supportive of gay marriage, favored it, along with 34 percent of mainline Protestants; today, it\u2019s 57 percent of Catholics and 55 percent of mainline Protestants. Even among white evangelical Protestants, the most hostile group to gay marriage, support has more than doubled, from 11 percent in 2004 to 24 percent in 2013. \u201cThis debate has gone from a debate between nonreligious and religious Americans to a debate dividing religious Americans,\u201d said Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, who has closely tracked the\u00a0evolution in public opinion<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most gay Americans in the 20th century, the church was a place of pain. It cast them out and called them evil. It cleaved them from their families. It condemned their love and denied their souls. In 2004, a president was elected when religious voters surged from their pews to vote against the legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Quiet Gay-Rights Revolution in America's Churches<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For most gay Americans in the 20th century, the church was a place of pain. It cast them out and called them evil. It cleaved them from their families. 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