The ground has shifted on gay marriage for conservative Christians.
For decades, opposition to same-sex marriage was a marquee issue for the religious right in the United States. Activists like Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson characterized homosexuality as a threat to traditional family life.
When the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, the head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, initially warned that the case would be “the downfall of America.” The evangelist Franklin Graham told Christianity Today in 2015 that the country had “taken a nosedive off of the moral diving board into the cesspool of humanity.” But the Obergefellrulingchanged the landscape, ending state-by-state battles over the question and somewhat deflating the marriage issue specifically among the religious right’s base, which is now much more focused on issues about gender.
Public opinion on same-sex marriage has turned rapidly toward acceptance this century. In the early 2000s, about 60 percent of Americans opposed it, according to the Pew Research Center.
Now, that is the same share that support it. And views have also been shifting among many Christians, including young evangelicals.
