NEW YORK (AP) -- Seeking to counteract conservative teaching on sex, some 850 clergy and other religious workers on Tuesday endorsed a declaration on morality that calls upon all faiths to bless same-sex couples and allow gay and lesbian ministers.
Though homosexuality is currently the most hotly disputed issue in American religion, the declaration also advocates open access to abortion and sex education at all age levels. It opposes "unsustainable population growth," the "commercial exploitation of sexuality" and all forms of "sexual oppression."The statement was sponsored by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, or SIECUS, a group advocating sex education.
"For too long, the only voices in the public square on religion and sexuality have been the anti-sexuality pronouncements of the religious right," SIECUS President Debra Haffner said at a news conference. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, said that "the religious community has largely ceded the ground to those who distort our tradition." Though members of 25 denominations endorsed the text, nearly half are officials and clergy from Thomas's United Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and Judaism's Reform and Reconstructionist branches.
The paper got slim backing from Roman Catholics -- two nuns, no priests and a handful of lay activists -- and none from major Evangelical, black Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim organizations.