Read a May 17, 2011, article published by CBS Minnesota about then-GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s views on evolution. Gingrich said in May 2011 that he sees no conflict between faith and science with regard to life’s origins.

A September 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, in partnership with Religion News Service, showed that a majority of Americans (57 percent) believe in evolution. But white evangelicals and Tea Party members — a core constituency for the GOP — are significantly less likely to believe in evolution.

A January 2012 survey of Protestant pastors, conducted by LifeWay Research, shows that by a wide margin most of them believe that God did not use evolution to create humans and think Adam and Eve were literal people. It also found that ministers are almost evenly split on whether the Earth is thousands of years old.

Read a Jan. 23, 2012, post at the Religion Clause blog that counts six separate bills pending in state legislatures that promote teaching creationism or intelligent design in schools.

Read a Jan. 31, 2012, Religion News Service story about the efforts of state governments to remove evolution from school curriculum.

Lee M. Williams is professor of marital and family therapy in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. He is the author of several articles on interchurch couples, including “Premarital Counseling With Interchurch Couples: Clinical Implications From Recent Research,” published in 2002 in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy.

Pamela Jordan is an associate professor of family and child nursing at the University of Washington and developer of the Becoming Parents Program. Her research focuses on the transition to parenthood and supporting individuals and couples as they become parents.

Galena K. Rhoades is a senior researcher for the Center for Marital and Family Studies in the psychology department at the University of Denver.

Dr. Lynn Borgatta is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Boston University School of Medicine and she is on staff at Boston Medical Center. She is the co-editor of A Clinician’s Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion (Churchill Livingstone, 1999).