Southern Baptists move to end same-sex marriage in the US

Southern Baptists, whose faith includes over 12 million in the US, have endorsed a ban to end same-sex marriage in America.

The moment marks the first time the group has officially opposed the ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 landmark Supreme Court case backing same-sex marriage.

The votes on Tuesday came during the annual Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas, Texas, attended by over 10,000 church representatives.

Experts say the evangelical group's values have increasingly shifted to align with the Christian right, a branch of conservatism that has gained momentum under US President Donald Trump.

The Southern Baptists' resolution does not use the word "ban" directly. Instead, it calls for the "overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God's design for marriage and family".

The resolution also calls "for laws that affirm marriage between one man and one woman".

Any legal reversal of the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision would not lead automatically to a nationwide ban of same-sex marriage. Thirty-six states had already legalised same-sex marriage at the time of the ruling, and nearly 70% of Americans still it, polls show.

"What we're trying to do is keep the conversation alive," Andrew Walker, an ethicist at a Southern Baptist seminary in Kentucky who wrote the resolution, told the New York Times.

Although the resolution is non-binding, it comes from a large, influential faction of President Trump's base and sends a direct message to the White House.

Eighty-five percent of white evangelical Protestants are likely to be Republican voters, according to a 2024 Pew Research survey.

"I think there is a confidence that (Trump) will have their backs," Kristin Du Mez, a Calvin University history professor specializing in religion and politics, told the BBC.

"In some ways, it's an uphill battle," she said. "But I do think they sense that there's been this shift, that there may be a window opening, and that they think this is the right time to press this issue."

She described a "transactional element" to the relationship between evangelicals and Trump, whose Supreme Court nominations helped end national abortion rights.

Evangelicals also played a "very prominent" role overturning Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that protected abortion for nearly 50 years before it was overturned in 2022, said Ms Du Mez.

She said she believes evangelicals may be using the same blueprint to end same-sex marriage.

"I know some of the leaders have pointed to Roe v Wade as a model of the need to play the long game," she said.

Trump's message on same-sex marriage has been mixed over the years, telling CNN in 2015 that he ed "traditional marriage" then, in a 60 Minutes interview in 2016, saying he was "fine" with same-sex marriage.

In his second term, however, he has launched a campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) with multiple directives targeting LGBTQ groups. This includes banning transgender people from serving the military, and revoking a Biden-era executive order preventing discrimination "on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation".

Fear and anxiety in LGBTQ communities have grown as a result, leading some international organisations to boycott World Pride in Washington DC this year.

And although public largely remains behind same-sex marriage, the Southern Baptists' resolution has added to LGBTQ groups' sense of alarm.

"This is a very visible example of how attacks on the LGBTQ+ community as a whole have intensified, even as politicians take aim at transgender people as a tactic to divide us," Laurel Powell, Human Rights Campaign communications director, said in a statement to the BBC.

"We will never stop fighting to love who we love and be who we are."