Southern Baptists call on to make a statement about the Supreme Court about same -sex marriage

Southern Baptists voted overwhelming on Tuesday to call for the destruction of the ruling of the Supreme Court that legalized the marriage of the same sex, in which strategists quoted the successful effort that destroyed the right to legal abortions as a possible blueprint for the new fight.

The denomination has long been against same -sex marriage, but Tuesday was the first time that the members voted to work to end it legally. Expansion of the success of conservatives in Returning roe v. Wade in 2022The mood indicates that growing evangelical ambitions to Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court pronunciation That was transferred this month 10 years ago.

“What we try to do is keep the conversation alive,” said Andrew Walker, an ethicist with a Southern Baptist Seminary in Kentucky who wrote the resolution.

Mr. Walker leads the Southern Baptist Committee that collects proposals from Baptists throughout the country to be discussed and vote during the meeting. Baptists, he said, take the long sight, inspired by the tactics of the anti-abortion movement. Roe v. Wade granted a constitutional right to abortion that stood for almost 50 years before activists and legal strategists defeated it, driven by the support of Christian conservatives.

The mood of the Baptists against Obergefell took place at the end of the first day of the annual meeting of the denomination, which is being held this year in a conference center in Dallas. By attracting thousands of pastors and church members from large and small congregations throughout the country, the meeting is closely monitored as a snapshot of Evangelical sentiment about a series of political, theological and cultural issues.

The measure against the marriage of the same sex was part of a radical and unusually long resolution under the title, “about the recovery of moral clarity through God’s design for gender, marriage and the family.” It includes calling for unmasking planned parenting, for ‘parental rights in education and health care’ and guaranteeing ‘safety and fairness in female athletic competition’, a reference to the debate about transgender women in women’s sports.

The resolution is non-binding, but suggests that Evangelicals have long-term ambitions to dismantle an institution that many Americans now accept as a basic right. Southern Baptists who supported the resolution acknowledged that the marriage of the same sex has great support.

“It places Southern Baptists on the record,” said Denny Burk, the president of the Council for Biblical masculinity and femininity, who argues for different roles for men and women. “We know that we are now in a minority in culture, but we want to be a prophetic minority.”

The resolution also reflects the language of pronatism that has led in many conservative circles, including those who influence the second Trump government. The resolution that was adopted on Tuesday criticizes the pursuit of “intentional childlessness” and refers to the falling fertility figure of the country as a crisis. That language goes beyond the traditional support of the Baptists to general ‘family values’, which embraces a cultural agenda that encourages larger families as a matter of survival of civilizations. Baptist theology does not necessarily oppose contraception.

Other resolutions adopted on Tuesday cried for the prohibition of pornography and condemning sports bets. “We turn the promotion and standardization of this predatory industry in every athletic context,” said gambling resolution. It called on companies to ‘stop their exploitation’, on policy makers to limit sports betting and Christians to refuse to participate.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country and is often seen as a Bellwether for conservative evangelicalism that is great. Like many Christian denominations, it is broadly decreasing, with around 12.7 million members in 2024, a decrease of 2 percent compared to the previous year. But church attendance and baptisms had risen, which suggests continuous vitality in the banks.

Going through the resolution against same -sex marriage could suggest that conservative Christians have the will to maintain long -term opposition against positions without much popular support, including some conservative politicians.

Last year, the Convention adopted a resolution against the use of vitro fertilizationMany republicans who wanted to reassure voters that their opposition against abortion would not be endangered, very popular fertility treatments. President Trump called himself the “father of IVF” during the 2024 campaign and said he wanted to let the treatments free for all Americans.

On Wednesday, the delegates, called “Messengers”, will consider whether they should abolish their own public policy, which her critics say they are out of step with conservative baptists in the banks. They will also discuss a constitutional change that has stuck on female predecessors, who did not succeed last year, but seems to have received support.

Some messengers in the Chamber said that the mood in the convention this year feels more stable, after a few years of bruises in internal fights. Speakers on the main stage and from the floor have often mentioned unity. Many messengers are tired after controversial debates about issues on which the denomination is broadly in line.

About 10,500 messengers have registered for this year’s meeting, a precipitation from recent years when hot-button disputes drew a large number of church leaders and members to make their voices heard. The Tuesday procedure was consistently for the schedule. It was a clearly unusual development for a sometimes noisy, chaotic meeting in which a participant is invited to speak from the floor, and who tries to comply with Robert’s rules of order sometimes turn into annoyance or laughter.

Clint Presley, the pastor of a large church in North Carolina, was easily chosen for a second term as president of the denomination on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Presley, a sympathetic preacher who has largely avoided controversy, told Messengers on Tuesday morning in an address that although the denomination “found us the last bit in a bit of storm,” the beliefs and churches are largely solid.

“It’s good to be a southern Baptist,” he concluded.