Objective. The goal of this article is to analyze the relationship between religion, measured in terms of religious affiliation and religiosity, and public opinion about same-sex marriage, civil unions, and a federal constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. Methods. We use logistic regression with calculated standardized coefficients to analyze data from a nationally representative survey of 1,610 respondents conducted in March-April 2004. Results. Religious variables perform better than demographic measures in models of attitudes about same-sex unions. Non-Protestants are much more likely to support same-sex unions than are Protestants, and individuals with conservative attitudes toward morality and secularism and (to a lesser extent) those who participate actively in religious life are more likely to oppose such unions. On the whole, religious variables play a weaker role in predicting support for a constitutional amendment to prevent gay marriage than they do in predicting attitudes toward same-sex unions. Conclusions. Religious variables play powerful roles in structuring attitudes about same-sex unions. Moreover, homosexuality appears to be a major component of the ''moral values'' discourse that is currently so popular in American politics.
Homosexuality is one of the most divisive issues within mainline Protestantism today. In this article we portray the many sides of mainline Protestantism's debates about homosexuality through the lens of statements clergy made about the issue in early 2000. In interviews with 62 mainline Protestant clergy across the United States, 40 volunteered their views on homosexuality without being prompted. We describe the frames through which clergy understand and articulate issues related to homosexuality in the midst of contentious denominational debate about the subject. The majority of clergy who discussed homosexuality focused on the issue in their churches instead of in society at large, and in their denominations rather than in their own congregations. Moreover, virtually none of the clergy interviewed took hard and fast stands on the issue of homosexuality. Most approach the issue in a pragmatic, rather than prophetic, way. Our interviews also show that pastors who choose to speak on homosexuality tend to frame the issue in terms of the diffuse notion of "homosexuality," rather than talking about gay men and lesbians as people.
As the 2004 presidential election approached, journalists discovered an apparently new political phenomenon: the “religion gap,” or the tendency of the most religious Americans to espouse conservative political beliefs and prefer Republican candidates. As a typical news story put it, “Want to know how Americans will vote next Election Day? Watch what they do the weekend before. If they attend religious services regularly, they probably will vote Republican by a 2-1 margin. If they never go, they likely will vote Democratic by a 2-1 margin” (Thomma 2003). The religion gap was illustrated frequently and clearly by public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center (2003) study, for example, found the American public sharply divided between the Republicans and Democrats on the eve of the 2004 campaign, with frequency of worship attendance emerging as a powerful predictor of party preference. In fact, most evidence of the religion gap was linked to differences in worship attendance.
A growing body of research examines national conflicts over homosexuality in mainline Protestant denominations, but few studies have explored the concrete ways individual congregations are responding. We focus on thirty mainline Protestant congregations (in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], and the United Methodist Church) in the northeastern United States that have formally considered the issue of homosexuality recently. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with these congregations' clergy, we assess how homosexuality became a public issue in each church and how each denomination influenced the process by which congregations responded. Building on previous research on the relationship between congregations and denominations, we find that denominational resources about homosexuality, primarily in the form of structured educational materials, narrow the range of social processes congregations adopt in response. The more educational resources and structured guidance denominations provided, the narrower the range of processes congregations took in response. Leaders and members of mainline Protestant denominations have been arguing about homosexuality for the past thirty years. While each mainline denomination has tried to settle conflicts and reach tenable compromises regarding
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