While Southern Baptists have long been opposed to same-sex marriage, the resolution’s passage signifies the church’s efforts to garner its influence to make U.S. society adhere to Christian conservative values.
“What we’re trying to do is keep the conversation alive,” Andrew Walker, an ethicist at a Southern Baptist seminary in Kentucky who wrote the resolution, told the New York Times.
Members of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination, are hoping to see Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage, overturned. They see the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as a blueprint.
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has previously signaled support for overturning Obergefell, having expressed in a concurring opinion in the case that overruled Roe, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that the Supreme Court should reconsider previous cases that legalized gay marriage and contraception.
SOUTHERN BAPTISTS TO DEBATE CHURCH’S STANCE ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE AND FEMALE PASTORS
“Christians are called to play the long game,” Walker said. “There are burgeoning embryonic efforts being discussed at the legal-strategy level on how to begin to challenge Obergefell. How do we take the lessons from Roe that took 50 years? What is the legal strategy to overturn Obergefell at some point in the future?”
During last year’s convention, Baptists voted on a resolution signaling their opposition to in vitro fertilization.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
