This is the position that same-sex relationships may be blessed and solemnised by the church, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are no bar to ordination. It arrived in the mainline denominations by legislative act rather than by drift: The United Methodist Church removed the restrictive language from its Book of Discipline at the 2024 General Conference, after decades of contested votes and after the bodies that rejected the change had already begun to leave. Naming it as a doctrinal position rather than a policy is what allows a comparison to show the two Methodist churches agreeing on ten doctrines and dividing on one.
Facts
Disputed
Status Within the TraditionGenuinely disputed within the tradition 1 The position that same-sex relationships may be blessed and solemnised by the church and that sexual orientation and gender identity are no bar to ordination arrived in mainline Protestant denominations by legislative act rather than by gradual drift. The United Methodist Church removed the restrictive language from its Book of Discipline at the 2024 General Conference, after decades of contested votes at earlier General Conferences and after the more conservative bodies that rejected the change had already begun to leave the denomination in the years immediately before the vote, reducing the electorate that would otherwise have opposed it. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church documents the wider mainline Protestant pattern of denominations reaching this position through formal legislative votes rather than informal practice running ahead of official teaching. Naming it as a doctrinal position rather than a matter of policy is what allows a comparison to show, for example, the two Methodist bodies that resulted from this period agreeing on the greater part of their doctrine and dividing specifically on this one point, which is why the distinction between doctrine and policy matters for how the disagreement is recorded. Origins
Held BySourced to the subject's own accountDenominations holding it fully, extending both ordination and marriage: The United Methodist Church, which removed the restrictive language from its Book of Discipline at the 2024 General Conference; The Episcopal Church; the United Church of Christ; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and Community of Christ. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) permits it locally without requiring it of every minister. Bodies including the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God reject it in their own confessional terms, and bodies such as Roman Catholicism and the Anglican Communion hold a more limited or genuinely divided position; each is recorded on its own terms among this belief's linked positions. 2 Belief
Category of Belief Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteIt arrived by legislative act rather than by drift, after decades of contested votes and after the bodies that rejected the change had already begun to leave. Naming it as a doctrinal position rather than a policy is what allows a comparison to show the two Methodist churches agreeing on ten doctrines and dividing on one. 1 Learn More
A Legislative Change, Not a Doctrinal Drift
Every mainline body that has adopted full inclusion did so by a specific, dated floor vote rather than by a slow shift in unstated practice. The United Church of Christ's 25th General Synod approved a resolution affirming marriage equality regardless of gender on 4 July 2005, roughly eighty percent of the eight hundred eighty four member synod in favor, the first mainline Protestant body in the country to do so. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Churchwide Assembly voted 559 to 451 on 21 August 2009 to open ordained ministry to clergy in committed same gender relationships, ending a policy that had required celibacy. The Episcopal Church ended its own moratorium on gay and lesbian ordination by Resolution 2009-D025 the same year, revised its marriage canon in 2015, and in 2018 guaranteed every couple access to the marriage rite regardless of a diocesan bishop's own view. The United Methodist Church's 2024 General Conference removed the restrictive language from its Book of Discipline after decades of contested votes, following the departure of roughly a quarter of its American congregations into the Global Methodist Church the year before. In every case the change is a recorded act of church government on a named date, not an informal drift a historian has to infer.
How the Other Answer Is Actually Argued
A body that has not adopted full inclusion rarely states its position as a bare refusal; each gives its own reasoning in its own vocabulary. The Southern Baptist Convention's confessional statement, the Baptist Faith and Message, defines marriage as the uniting of one man and one woman in a covenant commitment and offers no path to ordination outside that definition. The Assemblies of God's position paper, revised by its General Presbytery in 2014, argues from the same marriage definition to a specific conclusion about leadership, that a person in a same sex relationship should not be ordained or serve in a role that models the Fellowship's teaching to others. Rome states a narrower and more recent distinction: Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican's 2023 declaration, permits a priest to offer a brief, non liturgical blessing to a same sex couple while insisting this is not an approval of the union itself and does not equate to marriage, a position African bishops meeting the following year publicly declined to implement in their own dioceses. The Anglican Communion offers a fourth shape of answer altogether. Its 1998 Lambeth resolution upheld traditional marriage, but the Communion binds no province to it; the Scottish Episcopal Church has married same sex couples since 2017 while other provinces hold 1998 as settled teaching, so the Communion's honest answer is that it has none common to all forty two of its churches.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Held Differently
The Communion's 1998 Lambeth resolution upheld marriage between a man and a woman and could not advise blessing same sex unions, but the Communion has no single church government binding its forty two provinces to that resolution. The Scottish Episcopal Church has married same sex couples since 2017 and the Church in Wales has blessed same sex civil marriages since 2021, while other provinces hold the 1998 resolution as settled teaching, so the Communion holds a different account of the question altogether: that each province decides it for itself rather than the Communion deciding it once for all.
Rejected Here
The Assemblies of God's official position paper, revised by its General Presbytery in 2014, defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and holds that a person in a same sex relationship should not be ordained or serve in a role that models the Fellowship's teaching.
The Southern Baptist Convention's confessional statement, the Baptist Faith and Message, defines marriage as the uniting of one man and one woman in a covenant commitment, and the Convention has no path to ordination for an LGBTQ person under that confession.
Belongs to Tradition
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Churchwide Assembly voted 559 to 451 on 21 August 2009 to open ordained ministry to clergy in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same gender relationships, ending a policy that had required celibacy of gay and lesbian clergy.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s 221st General Assembly voted on 19 June 2014 to permit, not require, ministers to perform a same sex marriage where it was civilly legal, and its Book of Order was amended the following year to redefine marriage as a commitment between two people; the denomination leaves the choice to each minister and session rather than asserting the position as required teaching, which is a weaker affirmative than a body that holds it as doctrine.
The Episcopal Church ended its own moratorium on ordaining partnered gay and lesbian clergy by Resolution 2009-D025 in 2009, revised its marriage canon in 2015 to remove the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, and in 2018 guaranteed every couple access to the marriage rite even in a diocese whose own bishop objects.
The prohibitions on the ordination of LGBTQ clergy and on same sex marriage were removed at the 2024 General Conference, after a long dispute during which many congregations left the denomination.
The United Church of Christ's 25th General Synod voted by roughly four to one on 4 July 2005 to affirm equal marriage rights regardless of gender, the first mainline Protestant body in the United States to do so.
Critiqued Here
Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican's 2023 declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings, permits a priest to offer a brief, non liturgical blessing to a same sex couple while stating explicitly that this is not an approval of their union and does not equate to marriage; ordination remains closed under the Church's own instructions. The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar publicly declined to implement even that blessing in its own dioceses the following year, so reception of Rome's own position is itself divided.
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source 2. General Convention Approves Marriage Equality (Episcopal News Service)
Sharon Sheridan, Episcopal News Service, 2015the holders' own accountView the Source The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Publishing Housethe holders' own accountView the Source Acts of Convention: Resolution 2009-D025 (Episcopal Archives)
The Episcopal Church (Episcopal Archives), 2009Belongs to Tradition: The Episcopal Church, Resolution 2009-D025, ending the informal moratorium on gay and lesbian ordinationView the Source Convention Lets Its Yes Be Yes: Full Access to Trial-Use Marriage Rites (Episcopal News Service, 2018)
Mary Frances Schjonberg, Episcopal News Service, 2018Belongs to Tradition: The Episcopal Church, Resolution B012, guaranteeing marriage rite access regardless of diocesan bishopView the Source UCC Becomes First Mainline Church to Endorse Gay Marriage (Christian Post, 2005)
Pauline J. Chang, Christian Post, 2005Belongs to Tradition: United Church of Christ, The 25th General Synod's 4 July 2005 marriage equality resolutionView the Source A Vote for Gay Clergy: In the ELCA (The Christian Century)
The Christian Century, The Christian Century, 2009Belongs to Tradition: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The 2009 Churchwide Assembly vote opening ordained ministry to partnered gay and lesbian clergyView the Source PC(USA) Pastors Granted Leeway to Perform Same-Sex Marriages (The Presbyterian Outlook)
The Presbyterian Outlook, 2014Belongs to Tradition: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The 221st General Assembly's 2014 authoritative interpretation permitting, not requiring, ministers to perform same sex marriagesView the Source Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Approves Marriage Amendment (pcusa.org)
Melody K. Smith, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2015Belongs to Tradition: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The 2015 ratification of Amendment 14-F redefining marriage in the Book of Orderthe holders' own accountView the Source Fiducia Supplicans, Declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Holy See, 2023Belongs to Tradition: Roman Catholicism, The 2023 declaration permitting non liturgical blessing while explicitly not equating it to marriagethe holders' own account
Final communique of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar on Fiducia Supplicans
Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), 2024Belongs to Tradition: Roman Catholicism, The African bishops' own 2024 communique declining to implement Fiducia Supplicans in their diocesesthe holders' own account
The Baptist Faith and Message
Southern Baptist Convention, 2000Belongs to Tradition: Southern Baptist Convention, Article XVIII, defining marriage as between one man and one womanView the Source Homosexuality, Marriage, and Sexual Identity (Assemblies of God, USA)
Assemblies of God (USA), 2014Belongs to Tradition: Assemblies of God, The Fellowship's own 2014 position paper on marriage, sexuality and ordinationthe holders' own accountView the Source Lambeth Conference 1998, Resolution I.10: Human Sexuality
Lambeth Conference, Anglican Communion Office, 1998Belongs to Tradition: Anglican Communion, Resolution I.10, upholding traditional marriage as the Communion's 1998 conference positionthe holders' own accountView the Source With Same-Sex Marriage in the Spotlight, Where Does It Stand Across the Anglican Communion? (Episcopal News Service, 2022)
Egan Millard, Episcopal News Service, 2022Belongs to Tradition: Anglican Communion, The 2022 province by province survey naming the Scottish Episcopal Church's 2017 and the Church in Wales's 2021 departures from the 1998 positionView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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