Post-Homophobic Christianity

Sally Kohn puts the SCOTUS marriage equality ruling in religious perspective on The Daily Beast.

Even before the court’s decision, 6 in 10 Americans supported the right of same-sex couples to marry—and over half of Americans said they would be less likely to support any 2016 presidential candidate who opposed marriage equality.

Yet some conservatives have tried to paint this cultural evolution—or even revolution—as fundamentally at odds with Christianity. That’s where they’re wrong.

The Episcopalian Church embraced gay marriage last week. Earlier this year, the Presbyterian Church (USA) affirmed its support for marriage equality, joining many other major Christian denominations that officially endorse LGBT rights. And according to an April 2015 poll, majorities of congregants within many Christian faith traditions support marriage equality—including 60 percent of all Catholics, 52 percent of all orthodox Christians and 62 percent of white mainline Protestants. They’re joined by 94 percent of Unitarian Universalists and 77 percent of all Jews. 

Perhaps most strikingly, 64 percent of self-identified Millennial evangelicals support same-sex marriage. As the literal future of orthodox Christianity, it would be hard to paint their views as at odds with such orthodoxy. Rather, they are a portrait of that future—not of a post-Christian America, but a post-homophobic Christianity. That is the “new normal” that Obergefall does not singularly usher in but merely reflects. The world has changed. Christians and Christianity has changed, too. And again, I say, “Hallelujah!”