Evangelicals less likely to support gay ‘marriage’ than they were 10 years ago
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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 16, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While most Americans have become radically more amenable to the homosexual political agenda over the last 10 years, the nation's most faithful practicing Protestants bucked the trend.
Evangelical Christians actually became more opposed to redefining marriage since 2003, according to a recent poll.
According to the poll, some 93 percent of evangelicals believe marriage should be defined as the union of one man and one woman, and 98 percent believe homosexual “marriage” is immoral. Both measures increased by three percent over the previous decade.
The Barna Group, which has tracked the question for 10 years, took its most recent poll in late June, following the Supreme Court decisions relating to gay “marriage” and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
Overall, the poll found that Americans felt a “growing, but still hesitant moral acceptance of same-sex sexual relationships.”
The survey revealed that only 37 percent of Americans believe homosexual relationships are “moral,” an increase of seven percent since the group began asking.
Yet support for marriage as it has historically been defined fell below a majority during those years. In 2003, 52 percent believed in traditional marriage; today, 48 percent do, according to Barna.
Ten years ago, atheists and agnostics were the only “faith” where a majority favored the homosexual political agenda. At that time, 66 percent endorsed “gay rights.” Today, only 18 percent of Americans with no faith hold to the traditional definition of marriage.
Catholic belief in the nuclear family fell off sharply, from 64 percent in 2003 to exactly half (50 percent) today.
Evangelicals became mildly more accepting of the homosexual agenda on only one front: 18 percent of evangelical Christians believe homosexuals should be able to adopt, inching up from 12 percent a decade ago.
The poll, which was conducted June 27-30, confirmed what many others had found: That Generation X and Millenials were far more likely to support changing laws to enact the political agenda of the LGBT community (65 percent) and to believe homosexuality is morally acceptable (47 percent) than those over the age of 40.
The generation gap held true among practicing Christians, as well. While Christians under the age of 40 were far more inclined to support traditional morality and the nuclear family – 61 percent affirm that marriage should be exclusively heterosexual, and only 25 percent believe same-sex relations are free of moral objection – they are still more supportive of the LGBT lobby than older Christians.
David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, said homosexuality has become “in many ways, the defining social and moral issue of the day.”
“Many churches and Christian leaders are going to rise or fall based on how they address it,” Kinnaman said. “Our research on younger Christians shows many leave the church over questions on these complex issues.”
“And unless they are given a robust and compelling vision for why they need to hold to those views – and how to embrace them in a humble-yet-livable way – we expect even more disaffection between young adults and the Church in the years come,” he said.
