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(RNS) While the Vatican and U.S. bishops maintain a hard-line stand against most gay rights causes, American Catholics are more supportive of gay rights than other U.S. Christians, according to new research released Tuesday (March 22).
A report by Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute found that 74 percent of Catholics favor legal recognition for same-sex relationships, either through civil unions (31 percent) or civil marriage (43 percent).
That figure is higher than the 64 percent of all Americans, 67 percent of mainline Protestants, 48 percent of black Protestants and 40 percent of evangelicals.
Less than one-quarter (22 percent) of Catholics want no legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, while a majority (56 percent) believes that same-sex adult relationships are not sinful.
The analysis was based on polling conducted by PRRI and the Pew Research Center last fall. In almost every category, Catholics scored 5 to 6 percentage points higher on supporting gay rights than other U.S.
churches.
Neither Jews (who are generally among the most supportive of gay rights issues) nor Muslims were included in the data because of their small sample size.
The PRRI analysis found notable generational differences on gay rights — more than half (56 percent) of Catholics under age 35 favor same-sex marriage, compared to only one in five (21 percent) of Catholics age 65 and older.
Church attendance is also a notable factor — the report found that about 25 percent of Catholics who attend services weekly or more favor same-sex marriage, compared to 43 percent who attend a couple of times a month, and 59 percent of Catholics who attend a few times or less a year.
-RICHARD YEAKELY, Religion News Service
posted March 26, 2011 at 9:26 pm
The disparity in the percentages in the Catholic church of the support of so called gay rights can be explained by the farther one is from active participation in the sacramental life, the easier one succumbs to the idea “there is no such thing as sin and anything goes.” The numbers prove my theory.
posted April 1, 2011 at 1:16 pm
What “numbers” are you referring to, R Maruscello?
You are correct about “so-called gay rights” – there’s no such thing, only EQUAL rights, and currently in America, gay PEOPLE don’t have them.
You assume that Catholics interested in equality for ALL citizens are “far from active participation in the sacramental life”. Upon WHAT do you base such and assumption?
posted June 8, 2011 at 1:12 am
(Here is what I read while on computer. It is serious no?)
A TRANSGENDER SPIN-OFF
I’m a little kid and I feel that inside of me there is a real adult.
Yes, I have what you could say is an “adult identity.” I know I was born an adult because I never did choose to be an adult.
Since I’m really, really an adult deep down inside, why is it I’m not allowed to go to “adult only” places and act like adults?
I mean, kids in Palestine can carry adult guns. Kids in other Muslim places can cut off heads in videos. And kids in San Francisco can watch gays having sex in public, so why can’t “adult” kids like me act like those adults?
If a man can be the “woman” inside of him, and if a woman can be the “man” she says is inside of her, I demand to live out the “adult identity” that I know is really, really inside of me!
Since a cat may think he’s the “mouse” inside of him, and since our “Christian” President can be the “Muslim” inside of him, I demand the right to be the transbeing adult that was inside of me even before I was born!
signed, Charlie (I mean – Mr. Brown)