SURVEY SHOWS LUTHERAN CLERGY SUPPORT

ORDINATION OF GAY AND LESBIAN CLERGY

SURVEY SHOWS ELCA CLERGY SUPPORT PERFORMING SAME-SEX MARRIAGES WHERE LEGAL

Contact: Dr. Robert P. Jones, President, 202-425-0277, rjones@publicreligion.org
For the PDF version of this press release, click here.

A majority of clergy who belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) support ordination of gay and lesbian clergy, and a plurality (46%) support performing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal, according to a recent national survey by Public Religion Research. The Clergy Voices Survey is the most in-depth study ever conducted of Mainline Protestant clergy and contained nearly 60 questions related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church and society.

“ELCA clergy are generally supportive of a range of rights for gay and lesbian people both inside and outside the church. Nationwide, a majority of ELCA clergy support ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, and only a minority of ELCA clergy opposes performing same-sex marriages in the states where they are legal,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, President of Public Religion Research, who conducted the study. “ELCA clergy also strongly believe that the gospel message requires full inclusion of gay and lesbian members in the life of the church, and support for ordination and participation in marriage ceremonies of gay and lesbian parishioners are concrete expressions of that theological conviction.”

Seven-in-ten ELCA clergy say that the gospel message requires full inclusion of LGBT people in the church, and a majority of ELCA clergy supports ordination of gay and lesbian clergy . A solid majority (54%) of ELCA clergy says that gay and lesbian people should be eligible for ordination with no special requirements. About one-third (32%) says that gay and lesbian people should be eligible for ordination only if they are celibate, and only 14% say gay and lesbian people should not be eligible at all.

A plurality of ELCA clergy support performing civil marriages where legal. By a significant margin, ELCA clergy disagree with the statement, “Even if it were legal, I would not be willing to perform a civil union or marriage for a same-sex couple” (46% disagree vs. 37% agree). As a matter of public policy, the overwhelming majority of ELCA clergy support either same-sex marriage (37%) or civil unions (44%), and only 1-in-5 (19%) says there should be no legal recognition for same-sex relationships. ELCA clergy are also strongly supportive of other rights for LGBT families and individuals, such as adoption rights, hate crimes laws, and workplace discrimination protections.

A majority (53%) of ELCA clergy report that their views on LGBT issues are more liberal today than they were a decade ago. One-third (33%) says their views have not changed, and only 14% say they have become more conservative.

The Clergy Voices Survey was conducted by mail among a national random sample of senior clergy serving congregations in the seven largest Mainline Protestant denominations. The survey contained over 250 separate questions and generated 2,658 respondents with a response rate of 44%. The findings represent the opinions of senior Lutheran clergy currently serving congregations. The study included a national random sample of 387 Lutheran clergy with a margin of error +/- 5.5%. The Clergy Voices Survey was funded by the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. Full results of the study, including a full top line questionnaire and detailed methodology, can be found at http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=208.

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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.

I wanted to flag this new article I have up on Religion Dispatches. The full text is available here.

The familiar story about religion in public life is populated with stock characters repeating conservative diatribes and constructed from worn plot lines that circle endlessly around wedge issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. A recent AP story titled “Christians Optimistic but Disappointed in Obama” largely followed this script, focusing heavily on evangelicals, just one slice of the diverse Christian family.

But now, as the late Paul Harvey would say, we are getting “the rest of the story,” as more diverse religious voices are entering the public sphere. What might be surprising to many Americans is the existence of a large number of Christian clergy who are liberal-minded, politically engaged, and eager to be more involved in public debates on social justice issues.

These clergy, who are more concerned with the common good than with sectarian strife, are signs of hope for our troubled times. President Obama’s faith was nurtured in a mainline Protestant denomination—the United Church of Christ—and the data shows that he’ll find in mainline clergy a deep well of support on many of the defining issues of the day. While many conservative religious leaders and pundits continue a tired refrain, mainline Protestant clergy are widely supportive of energetic government action to tackle economic problems like unemployment, environmental protection, and the catastrophe of millions of Americans who lack access to adequate health care.

More than three-quarters of mainline clergy today agree that the federal government should do more to solve broad societal problems like unemployment, poverty, and poor housing. Almost 70 percent say the government should do more to protect the environment, even if it raises prices and costs jobs. And more than two-thirds agree that the government should guarantee health insurance for all citizens, even if it means higher taxes.

This very different public face of Christian clergy is documented in a recently-released extensive survey conducted by Public Religion Research among clergy from the seven largest mainline denominations: United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This isn’t a homogenous group, and there are some significant differences across denominational lines, but support for an activist, justice-seeking government that works for the common good cuts across all of them….

Continue reading the complete article at Religion Dispatches here.

Wanted to flag this article from The Christian Century covering Public Religion Research’s Mainline Protestant Clergy Voices Survey.  The full article is available here.

Mainline called uncounted force for change

by John Dart

The White House has an oft-overlooked religious ally for solving the country’s social problems through greatly expanded government programs, if a new survey of senior pastors in mainline Protestant churches is a good indication…Though mainline Protestants, declining in numbers, no longer enjoy the political and cultural prominence they had in the 1950s and early 1960s, they should not be counted out, Jones said.

Mainline Protestants make up 18 percent of all Americans and nearly a quarter of all voters, he said, adding that main line clergy are “an important swing constituency that has been moving slowly but steadily away from the GOP since the early 1990s.” At the same time, the clergy reflect the American diversity of opinion on several controversial issues [read the highlights of these findings here]…

Conservative Protestants and think tanks on the right “like to portray [mainline clergy] as ideological leftists, [but] ‘Clergy Voices’ does not find them so,” said religion historian Martin E. Marty in his online “Sightings” commentary March 9. “They have voices in public affairs, but rarely and mildly try to project or enforce social justice ‘dogma.’”

“Politicians who would organize and exploit them, as they do some other religious groups, would have difficulty doing so,” said Marty, a Century contributing editor, because of regional and denominational differences. “Yes, half call themselves ‘liberal,’ because they are not afraid of the label, but a third are ‘conservative.’”

Public Religion Research’s Jones, a visiting fellow at The Third Way, a progressive think tank, said mainline churches value unity in diversity, which amounts to “a real strength” in an increasingly polarized society…

Continue reading the complete article from The Christian Century.

See the full results of the survey from Public Religion Research here.