Few Pastors Have Been Asked to Preside at Same-Sex Weddings - and No One Has Been Forced
Americans United had a little fun about two months ago with the Religious Right’s claim that if marriage equality became the law of the land, pastors would be forced to preside at same-sex weddings.
We produced a special website designed to keep count of all of the members of the clergy who have been compelled to marry same-sex couples.
Now further evidence has emerged that this claim is completely specious. LifeWay Research, a firm associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, has just released a poll showing that very few Protestant pastors have been asked to preside at a same-sex wedding.
Few pastors have been asked to perform same-sex ceremonies and none have been forced to do so.
Adelle Banks, a reporter with Religion News Service, provides a good summary of the poll: “More than 100,000 same-sex weddings have occurred since the Supreme Court ruling. But only 11 percent of senior church pastors, both mainline and evangelical, report having been asked to perform such a rite, according to a poll by LifeWay Research.
“Mainline Protestant clergy were three times as likely as evangelical pastors to have been asked. Presbyterian or Reformed clergy are most likely – 26 percent – to have received a request to marry a same-sex couple, while Baptist pastors, at 1 percent, are the least likely.”
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