Evangelicals Are Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage

[RKP5637]

Interesting ...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/evangelicals-gay-marriage-108608.html

It’s no secret that attitudes toward same-sex relations have changed in this country: Gay marriage is legal in 19 states plus the District of Columbia, and all major public opinion surveys now show a majority of Americans are in favor of it. But Matthew Vines and Amy Tincher are no longer outliers either: Increasingly, even evangelical Christians, long known for doctrinally condemning homosexuality, are embracing gay people, too.

Over the past decade, evangelical support for gay marriage has more than doubled, according to polling by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. About a quarter of evangelicals now support same-sex unions, the institute has found, with an equal number occupying what researchers at Baylor University last year called the “messy middle” of those who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds but no longer support efforts to outlaw it. The shift is especially visible among young evangelicals under age 35, a near majority of whom now support same-sex marriage. And gay student organizations have recently formed at Christian colleges across the country, including flagship evangelical campuses such as Wheaton College in Illinois and Baylor in Texas.

The change has taken conservative political leaders by surprise, fractured the coalition against gay marriage and begun to dry up funding for some of the traditional-marriage movement’s most prominent organizations. Just a decade ago, conservative Christians powered an electoral surge that outlawed gay unions in 11 states and, in the view of many political analysts, helped to ensure President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection. Barely one in 10 evangelicals supported gay marriage, and church leaders like Warren urged their followers to vote against same-sex unions. Evangelicals “could not stand idly by while the radical gay agenda was forced down their throats,” James Dobson, then the chairman of the conservative Christian advocacy group Focus on the Family, said at the time. At its extreme, evangelical denunciation of gay people turned hateful and violent. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart drew widespread condemnation in 2004 when he told an audience, “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”

Now, Christian political groups, including Focus on the Family and the National Association of Evangelicals, have virtually stopped campaigning on the issue, shifting their focus to legal efforts to shield religious business owners from having to cater to gay weddings. Republican politicians, who historically have relied on evangelical support, are backing away, too. In Ohio, where in 2004 evangelical activists were among the first in the nation to campaign for a successful ballot measure outlawing gay unions, both Rob Portman, the state’s Republican senator, and Jim Petro, former Republican attorney general, now support overturning the ban.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Maybe the younger future evangelists are trying to position themselves to

Collect in the future. If all is right they perhaps are looking at loving everyone and this would be good.

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2. I'm not a religious person, but I think humanity would be far better served if churches focused

more on love and bringing people together for the overall betterment of all mankind. I know some do this, but there is also quite a counterbalance of hatred and persecution by some churches of various people/groups.

[Thinkingabout]

3. You are right, the ones who should be trying to get everyone together.