{"id":10894,"date":"2019-02-26T15:31:42","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T20:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/rift-over-gay-rights-comes-as-united-methodists-in-us-have-become-more-accepting-of-homosexuality\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:12:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:12:50","slug":"rift-over-gay-rights-comes-as-united-methodists-in-us-have-become-more-accepting-of-homosexuality","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2019\/02\/26\/rift-over-gay-rights-comes-as-united-methodists-in-us-have-become-more-accepting-of-homosexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Rift over gay rights comes as United Methodists in U.S. have become more accepting of homosexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of debate, United Methodist Church leaders voted this week<\/a> to reaffirm the denomination\u2019s opposition to same-sex marriages and openly gay clergy. As a result, many of the more liberal-leaning congregations are expected to leave the denomination<\/a>, amounting to a schism in America\u2019s largest mainline Protestant church.<\/p>\n\n

\"United<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

These developments come at a time when many United Methodists in the United States have a more accepting view toward homosexuality. In Pew Research Center\u2019s 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study, 60% of United Methodists said homosexuality should be accepted by society<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a clear majority, and a substantial increase from 2007, when 51% said this. In addition, about half of U.S. Methodists (49%) said they favored legal same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n\n

That survey was conducted nearly five years ago, and Americans\u2019 views about homosexuality have shifted further since the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a02015 decision<\/a>\u00a0to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Members of all major religious traditions have\u00a0become even more likely to favor legal same-sex marriage<\/a>, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available. (That survey did not include enough United Methodists to analyze separately.)<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

The UMC is one of the few major mainline Protestant denominations in the United States that does not sanction same-sex marriage. The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and others have\u00a0moved to embrace gay marriage<\/a>\u00a0in recent years. (Evangelical Protestant denominations, by contrast, have not embraced same-sex marriage.)<\/p>\n\n

The internal debate over same-sex marriage and related issues comes at a challenging time for the United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n\n

\"Like<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Even before any departures resulting from this week\u2019s meeting, United Methodists have been shrinking considerably as a share of the U.S. population, part of a broader trend among U.S. Christians<\/a>\u00a0and particularly mainline Protestants. Our 2014 study found that United Methodists make up 3.6% of the U.S. adult population \u2013 down from 5.1% in 2007. (Mainline Protestants as a whole declined from 18.1% of the adult population to 14.7% over that seven-year period.)<\/p>\n\n

The church also is older and\u00a0less racially diverse<\/a>\u00a0than many others in U.S. The median age of United Methodist adults is 57,\u00a0well above the national median<\/a>. And 94% of United Methodists are white, much higher than the share of whites in the overall U.S. population (66%).<\/p>\n\n

At the same time, the denomination has\u00a0reportedly been growing<\/a>\u00a0elsewhere around the world \u2013\u00a0particularly in sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>, where views on homosexuality tend to be very conservative. Indeed, a\u00a0survey we conducted in sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>\u00a0a decade ago found that Christians in the region overwhelmingly said homosexuality is morally wrong, including nine-in-ten or more who held this position in countries such as Liberia, Nigeria and Kenya. The\u00a0church estimated<\/a>\u00a0that 30% of the delegates at this week\u2019s meeting were from Africa, while 58% were from the U.S.<\/p>\n\n

Note: This post was updated Feb. 27 to reflect the United Methodist Church\u2019s decision to maintain its opposition to same-sex marriages and openly gay clergy. <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The church is one of the few major mainline Protestant denominations in the country that currently does not sanction same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,179,185,167,172,220,226],"bylines":[854],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"class_list":["post-10894","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-beliefs-practices","category-christianity","category-mainline-protestantism","category-religion-lgbtq-acceptance","category-religion-politics-1","category-same-sex-marriage-1","category-same-sex-marriage-2","bylines-michael-lipka","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short 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