The National Council of Churches has long advocated a reduction in gun violence through gun control. Read a March 15, 2000, statement, “Interfaith Call to End Gun Violence.”

Read a Nov. 13, 2008, story in The Forward, a Jewish weekly, “Black, Jewish Vote for Obama May Signal a Renewed Tie: But the Historic Allies Still Disagree on Many Issues.”

Paul Knitter is the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is an expert in religious pluralism and can talk about how the election can affect the nation’s religious dynamics.

Serene Jones is president of Union Theological Seminary in New York and Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology. She can discuss the ways in which Obama’s presidency could move the religious focus from hot-button issues of sexuality to social justice issues, such as poverty and homelessness.

A June 26, 2011 Chicago Tribune article on clergy in Illinois who defied church on same-sex unions.

A May 31, 2011, story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about splits in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America after its 2009 decision to allow some openly gay clergy. According to the story, the ELCA says that 444 parishes voted to leave after the decision but that the ELCA has also started more than 300 new churches.

The Human Right’s Campaign has a run-down of LGBT issues in the Episcopal Church.

Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has a column on the Presbyterian Church USA decision.

The Rev. Janet Edwards, a Presbyterian minister who underwent a church trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women, has a Huffington Post column on the gay ordination policy.