Soulforce is a national activist group working on behalf of LGBTQ Christians. Soulforce was founded by the Rev. Mel White, a former speechwriter for conservative television evangelist Pat Robertson, and White’s partner, Gary Nixon. The group is based in Abilene, Texas.

The Institute on Religion & Democracy is a prominent lobby uniting conservatives across the mainline Protestant denominations to push for more traditional policies in American churches and for more conservative policies in American politics. The IRD is considered a major player in the battles over gay rights in churches.

The History of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Read a history of abstinence-only sex education and government funding from the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education.

Read a Christianity Today blog post on Out of Ur about pastor Dan Kimball’s thoughts on leadership in the emergent church from March 7, 2006.

Full text of the Vatican instruction entitled, “Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.” The document’s aim is to bar gay men from the priesthood.

Article by the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus about American dissent to official Vatican positions on sexuality as well as criticism of some of Pope Benedict’s early appointments of bishops including promoting the archbishop of San Francisco, William Levada, to succeed himself at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as the church’s doctrinal gatekeeper and the […]

Nancy Ammerman is professor of sociology at Boston University and a leading expert on congregational dynamics, especially in mainline Protestantism. She is the author of Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life and Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners. She is also an expert on religious movements and has written about the rise of fundamentalism.

Mark Jordan is a professor of Christian thought at Harvard University’s Divinity School and is an expert on issues of homosexuality in Catholic life, especially in the priesthood. He is the author of The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, 2002) and Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality (2011). He calls on the church to […]

A 2005 Gallup poll found that while Americans were supportive of equal job rights for homosexuals, they didn’t think people who are gay should be clergy members.