DALLAS (AP) — Southern Baptist delegates at their national meeting overwhelmingly endorsed a same-sex marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide.
They also called for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing.
The votes Tuesday came at the gathering of more than 10,000 church representatives at the annual meeting of the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
The wide-ranging resolution doesn’t use the word “ban,” but it left no room for legal same-sex marriage in calling for the “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family.” Further, the resolution affirmatively calls “for laws that affirm marriage between one man and one women.”
A reversal of the Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell decision wouldn’t in and of itself amount to a nationwide ban. At the time of that ruling, 36 states had already legalized same-sex marriage, and support remains strong in many areas.
However, if the convention got its wish, not only would Obergefell be overturned, but so would every law and court ruling that affirmed same-sex marriage.
There was no debate on the marriage resolution. That in itself is not surprising in the solidly conservative denomination, which has long defined marriage as between one man and one woman. However, it marks an especially assertive step in its call for the reversal of a...
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