Religion and LGBT Acceptance
The British, French, Spanish and Portuguese colonists, who settled most of the Americas, brought Christianity from Europe. In particular, the Roman Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of which oppose legal recognition of homosexual relationships followed by Eastern Orthodox church, the Methodist Church, and some other Mainline (Protestant) denominations, such as the Reformed Church in America and the American Baptist Church, as well as Conservative Evangelical organizations and churches, such as the Evangelical Alliance. The Southern Baptist Convention. Pentecostal churches such as the Assemblies of God, as well as Restorationist churches, like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, also take the position that homosexual sexual activity is sinful.
However, other denominations have become more accepting of LGBT people in recent decades, including the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the United Church of Canada, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Society of Friends (Quakers), and some congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.). Most of these denominations now perform same-sex weddings or blessings. In addition, in the United States Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism now welcome LGBT worshippers and perform same-sex weddings.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In The Americas
Famous quotes containing the words religion and, religion and/or acceptance:
“... the average Catholic perceives no connection between religion and morality, unless it is a question of someone elses morality.”
—Mary McCarthy (19121989)
“Both Socrates and Jesus were outstanding teachers; both of them urged and practiced great simplicity of life; both were regarded as traitors to the religion of their community; neither of them wrote anything; both of them were executed; and both have become the subject of traditions that are difficult or impossible to harmonize.”
—Jaroslav Pelikan (b. 1932)
“Cynicism makes things worse than they are in that it makes permanent the current condition, leaving us with no hope of transcending it. Idealism refuses to confront reality as it is but overlays it with sentimentality. What cynicism and idealism share in common is an acceptance of reality as it is but with a bad conscience.”
—Richard Stivers, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline, ch. 1, Blackwell (1994)