We have a new article up at Newsweek/Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog about what the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in New Hampshire reveals about the intersection of religion and same-sex marriage.  You can read the full piece here.

One June 3, New Hampshire governor John Lynch signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, making it the sixth state to affirm marriage equality. The passage of the New Hampshire law highlights the complex role of religion in the debates over marriage equality.

Mainline Protestant Dominance in States with Marriage Equality
First, there is an interesting religious-affiliation pattern emerging from the mosaic of states that have legalized same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Whereas white evangelical Protestants outnumber white Mainline Protestants in the general population (26% compared to 18%), white Mainline Protestants are the dominant Protestant voices in the six states that have marriage equality laws.

This pattern is consistent with recent polling that shows strong support for gay and lesbian equality among mainline Protestants in the general population. For example, white Mainline Protestants were the religious group most opposed (50%) to Proposition 8, which repealed the same-sex marriage law in California, and were more than four times as likely to oppose Proposition 8 as white evangelical Protestants (12%) (Public Policy Institute of California 2008). At the national level, only 26% of white Mainline Protestants oppose relationship recognition of any kind for gay and lesbian people, compared to more than 58% of white evangelicals (Public Religion Research, on behalf of Faith in Public Life, 2008) .

Moreover, recent polling indicates that in addition to Mainline Protestant people in the pews, Mainline Protestant clergy are largely supportive of gay and lesbian equality. The recently-released Clergy Voices Survey showed that nearly 8-in-10 (79%) Mainline clergy agree that gay and lesbian Americans should have “all the same rights and privileges as other American citizens,” up from 70% in 2001. And large majorities of Mainline Protestant clergy support workplace protections, hate crimes legislation, and adoption rights for gay and lesbian people (Public Religion Research 2009).

The Importance of Religious Liberty Reassurances
The legalization of same-sex marriage in New Hampshire also highlights a second major way religion plays a role in these debates: the relationship between religious liberty and marriage equality. Governor Lynch had threatened to veto the bill if it did not include language specifying that churches and religious groups would not be forced to conduct same-sex marriages or offer other services. While these religious liberty rights are already well-established in constitutional law, recent polling among Americans–particularly religious Americans–demonstrates a clear increase in support for marriage equality when laws include what we might call a “religious liberty reassurance.”

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Read the rest of the article at Newsweek/Washington Post here.

The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8, which repealed an existing California law allowing marriage between same-sex couples by amending the state constitution to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples. The role of religion in that vote has been the subject of much interest and debate, but solid data on religion has been scattered.

Last December, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) conducted a state-wide poll to provide a more nuanced picture of the general election and Proposition 8 vote in the state. Public Religion Research worked with PPIC analysts to produce findings for major religious groups that were not made available in their initial data release.  We have released a new memo summarizing these findings, along with summaries of the NEP Exit Poll findings on religion and the Prop 8 vote.

The full memo can be found here:
http://www.publicreligion.org/research/published/?id=131

The following are the key findings regarding major religious groups and the Proposition 8 vote:

• The data show a more complex picture among religious groups than stereotypes often portray. For example, while white evangelicals were strongly supportive of Prop 8 (88%-12%), white mainline Protestants evenly split their vote (50%-50%). This finding resonates with the Clergy Voices Survey PRR released just last week of white Mainline Protestant clergy, which showed Mainline clergy more supportive of gay rights than the general population and largely in line with Mainline Protestant people in the pews. That study can be referenced here.
• The largest group of religious voters, those who occasionally attend religious services (46% of CA voters), opposed Prop 8 (54%-46%). Only those voters who attend religious services weekly or more (32% of CA voters) supported Prop 8 (84% - 16%).
• Supporters and Opponents of Prop 8 brought different motivations and value frames to the ballot box.  Supporters felt more strongly that the vote was important and were driven primarily by the desire to “preserve marriage” and by religious objections to same-sex marriage. Opponents felt less strongly that the vote was important and were motivated primarily by a desire to extend equal rights and freedoms to gay and lesbian people.

Overall, this analysis cautions against an overly simplistic view of the role of religion in the Proposition 8 vote.

Note: This article originally published at ReligionDispatches.org. Click here to read the full article.

Rich Cizik. Out of Line?

The forced resignation of National Association of Evangelicals’ (NAE) vice-president Richard Cizik over remarks supporting civil unions for gay and lesbian couples sent shockwaves through the evangelical world last week. Cizik’s abrupt ouster from the NAE after 28 years of service is one more sign of the struggle for the soul of an evolving American evangelicalism.

Recent public opinion data points to the need for the current leaders to rethink their certainty about what constitutes “evangelical values”—especially if they care about not alienating the next generation.

Rich Cizik has been no stranger to controversy during his long tenure at the NAE. In early 2007, a group of Christian Right leaders called for his resignation because they claimed his work to broaden the evangelical agenda to include the environment diluted an exclusive focus on opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. At that time, the NAE board responded by reaffirming its confidence in Cizik and its commitment to a broader “biblically balanced agenda.”

But this time, with Cizik publicly saying that his views had been shifting toward supporting civil unions, NAE president Leith Anderson asked for his resignation, declaring that “there was a loss of credibility for him clearly espousing our positions and values.” Other evangelical voices on the Christian Right were more forceful, asserting that Cizik himself had become un-evangelical. Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family declared, “He no longer represents the view of evangelicalism.” Charles Colson of the Prison Fellowship claimed that Cizik was “separating himself from the mainstream of evangelical belief and conviction.”

But as I have argued elsewhere, evangelicals are not monolithic, and the question of whether Cizik’s positions represent evangelical positions, values, views, or beliefs is an empirical one. A quick appraisal of four of Cizik’s alleged departures from the evangelical mainstream in light of the data shows him clearly within the mainstream on most questions, and on the more controversial question of civil unions, in sync with the majority of younger evangelicals.

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Click here to read the full article at Religion Dispatches.org, which includes the data showing Cizik’s views in sync with mainstream evangelical opinion, especially younger evangelicals.