Over at The Public Discourse, Mark Regnerus reports some of the findings from a forthcoming study, Relationships in America. Regernus was interested in finding out what Christians who support same-sex marriage believed about other issues of sexual morality – and what makes his study interesting is that he measured the attitudes of churchgoing Christians, rather than all those who identify as Christian but do not practise.
His findings were quite striking.
Regnerus put the following statements to those surveyed and asked them to agree, strongly agree, disagree or strongly disagree:
1. Viewing pornographic material is OK.
2. It is a good idea for couples considering marriage to live together in order to decide whether or not they get along well enough to be married to one another.
3. It is OK for two people to get together for sex and not necessarily expect anything further.
4. If a couple has children, they should stay married unless there is physical or emotional abuse.
5. It is sometimes permissible for a married person to have sex with someone other than his/her spouse.
6. It is OK for three or more consenting adults to live together in a sexual/romantic relationship.
7. I support abortion rights.
The following image measures the percentages of people who “Agreed” or “Strongly Agreed” with the statements.
Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage were much, much closer to the national average in their beliefs on these issues than they are to Churchgoing Christians who oppose same-sex marriage.
The reasons for this aren’t entirely clear. Regnerus himself talks about “reference group theory” – the way in which people tend to adopt beliefs of “those sets of people we use as a standard of comparison for ourselves, regardless of whether we identify as a member of that group.”
Regardless, it seems that support for same-sex marriage is, in practice, usually not an isolated view but one that tends to come as part of a larger package. As Regnerus puts it:
“What would a pro-SSM Christian sexual morality look like? The national average—the norm—that’s what. “