Most liberal Protestant clergy don’t support gay marriage

Interesting news from Dan Gilgoff’s God & Country blog:

Mainline Protestantism is usually depicted in the news media as the politically liberal analogue to the conservative evangelical movement. But it’s more complicated than that.

For instance, mainliners split their support evenly between George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004, a year when nearly 80 percent of white evangelicals pulled the lever for Bush. Last November, Obama got only 44 percent of the white nonevangelical Protestant vote—mainliners, mostly—the same share Kerry got.

Source: Public Religion Research

And USA Today’s Cathy Lynn Grossman blogs about a new survey of mainline Protestant clergy, the most comprehensive ever conducted, that finds that most do not support legalizing same-sex marriage, even if they wouldn’t be required to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.

This division helps to explain why mainline denominations like the Episcopal Church—and let’s not forget the Methodists and the Lutherans—have been so torn up by a disagreement over the biblical treatment—acceptance, condemnation or ambivalence—of homosexuality.

The study was performed by Public Religion Research. Here are some highlights: