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Same-Sex Marriage: A Dilemma for Parish Clergy

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Abstract

Same-sex marriage within churches is an ongoing, highly contentious, and contested topic. A rich literature depicts dichotomised views, reflecting those of academics at denominational level, and addresses theological substance or denominational policies. Significantly less is known about the perspectives held on the issue by individual clergy at parishioner level. This paper provides a background on the subject of Christian clergy who support same-sex marriage. A review of the literature in this area reveals few sociological studies pertaining to clergy who are supportive of gay rights. No known studies in the combined sociological and psychology scholarship have yet exclusively examined clergy’s perspectives on same-sex marriage. While previous study offers some understanding on religious attitudes toward gay individuals, it should not be assumed that attitudes of religious individuals toward same-sex marriage necessarily follow the same pattern. For many religious people it is more problematic to accept same-sex marriage than same-sex partnerships, as this challenges the definition of the institution of marriage. This paper presents a literature review which identifies a gap in knowledge regarding perspectives of clergy who support same-sex marriage. These perspectives are important to understand, as clergy hold influential positions as opinion leaders impacting both at individual and social level, and influence discourses within religion and beyond.

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Notes

  1. Polygamy is still legal in certain groups of the population in India, Asia, Middle East and Africa (Bailey et al. 2006).

  2. Eugenics—reflecting the notions of racial purity and superiority, was the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

  3. List of countries where same-sex marriage is legal, as of January 2017: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay.

  4. Natural Law as it relates to human sexuality assumes that the male body is sexually made for the female body. Sperm are by their design oriented toward the egg, and same-gendered sex and any sex other than vaginal intercourse cannot fulfil the purpose “written” into our physical form.

  5. The Emmanuel Movement combined religion and modern medicine in meeting the psychological, physical, and spiritual needs of parishioners.

  6. The Academy of Religion and Mental Health was formed in America in 1956 as one of the earliest attempts of a religious-science association.

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Correspondence to Andrew Kirby.

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Andrew Kirby declares that he has no conflict of interest. Barbara McKenzie-Green declares that she has no conflict of interest. Judith McAra-Couper declares that she has no conflict of interest. Shoba Nayar declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in the studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Kirby, A., McKenzie-Green, B., McAra-Couper, J. et al. Same-Sex Marriage: A Dilemma for Parish Clergy. Sexuality & Culture 21, 901–918 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9414-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9414-1

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