It’s no surprise that the Southern Baptists at their annual confab in Dallas this week are planning to vote to overturn the right of gays to marry — in this 10th anniversary year of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalizing marriage equality.
The Southern Baptists are perennial homophobes. They became laughingstocks back in 1996 when they declared a boycott of Disney because the company provided insurance benefits to employees with same-sex partners.
But this gathering, according to the New York Times, “will be the first time that the largest Protestant denomination in America will ask representatives of its tens of thousands of member churches to work to end” gay marriage. That’s scary.
And that’s not all. Other resolutions being voted on include defunding the church’s public policy arm, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, because it doesn’t support criminal charges against women having abortions. Let me repeat that: Many Southern Baptists think women who have abortions should be prosecuted in criminal court and those Southern Baptists who don’t concur should be booted out. The SBC is also considering a resolution denouncing “willful childlessness.”
What else can we expect from the denomination that was historically formed to support chattel slavery in the United States? The denomination officially reserves the pastorship for men, which prompted Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to quit a number of years ago. Although an amendment to ban churches with women pastors failed last year, it’s expected to be reintroduced.
One Christian nationalist resolution being floated maintains that legislators have a duty to “pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life, and family” and to oppose laws contradicting “what God has made plain through nature and Scripture.” The Trump-supporting Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler says these resolutions merely pass on divinely created decrees and are “binding on all persons, in all times, everywhere.” How’s that for minority theocratic rule? Their political aims would truly enshrine minority rule when two-thirds of Americans, including nearly 40 percent of white evangelical Protestants, continue to support legal marriage for gays.
Obergefell has been endangered since the Dobbs decision in 2022, a ruling that flouted the Fourth Amendment right to privacy and overturned Roe v. Wade. This decision has emboldened Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who have openly indicated in a dissent that Obergefell should be overturned.
Weren’t any of these self-righteous fundamentalist meanies watching the “Tony Awards” a few days ago? They ought to see some shows on Broadway and broaden their narrow minds; they’re missing all the fun. Dan and I were lucky to do a mini-marathon of Broadway plays in April. We enjoyed “Pirates! The Penzance Musical,” a Cajun adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan play in which drag queen Jinkx Monsoon portrays Ruth and steals nearly every scene.
We saw “Oh, Mary!” with Cole Escola on Broadway. Although we were impressed with George Clooney, who was also in the running for best leading actor in “Good Night and Good Luck,” we rejoiced when Cole, a nonbinary actor/writer, won for their admittedly ridiculous and hilarious satire about Mary Lincoln. Jak Malone also won a Tony for best featured actor in a musical for his role in “Operation Mincemeat,” another gender bender in which the women actors portray men and vice versa, which you totally forget as you watch the play.
“Eight times a week, I walk out on that stage and tell the audience that I am a woman,” Malone said in his winning speech. “I’m not one, and I only convey it through simple adjustments to posture, voice and energy, but night after night, audiences believe in Hester. They weep for her, invest in her and love her for her old romantic heart.
“If you watched our show and found yourself believing in Hester, then I am so glad to tell you intentionally or otherwise, you might have just bid farewell to cynicism, to outdated ideas, to that rotten old binary and opened yourself up to a world that is out there in glorious technicolor and isn’t going away anytime soon.”
What a drag the Southern Baptists are, how beholden to that “rotten old binary,” and how in need of opening themselves up to a world “in glorious technicolor.”
So here’s the final takeaway: Even though the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination, only 4 percent of U.S. adults identify as members of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the denomination’s Annual Church Profile report reveals membership at its lowest level in 50 years, at about 12.7 million, down by 2 percent from last year and in its 18th consecutive year of decline. Yes, its influence unfortunately remains outsized. Among its ranks, for instance, is House Speaker Mike Johnson.
But the religiously unaffiliated, at 29 percent (we’re the largest single group by religious identification), number at least 75 million. Survey after survey shows that the religiously unaffiliated, especially the avowed atheists and agnostics among them, are the most socially progressive, the largest bloc supporting abortion and gay rights.
After taking some joy and succor from the arts, let’s flex our walking muscles by peacefully demonstrating this Saturday at “No Kings Day of Action,” a nationwide protest against regressive policies and for individual liberties. Then, we need to flex our electoral muscle in 2026 and 2028 to rescue individual liberties in these United States and share the technicolor.
Disclaimer: The views in this column are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
