The 43 plaintiffs, which include 13 dioceses and the University of Notre Dame, say the mandate forces religious employers to provide contraceptive and sterilization services to employees that violate their beliefs. They say that infringes on First Amendment religious freedom protections, and charge that the federal government’s exemption for religious organizations is too narrow.

“This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives,” said Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, who famously awarded President Obama an honorary degree in 2009 despite anger from U.S. bishops.

The Obama administration and its allies, including some Catholic groups, reject those assertions and say a proposed compromise to the mandate effectively bypasses any entanglement in birth control coverage by faith-based groups.

An HHS spokeswoman told The Associated Press the department does not comment on pending litigation.

It was unclear whether the new lawsuits, which were filed in 12 different federal jurisdictions, would be heard anytime soon or whether they would have any legal impact on the controversial White House plan to have health insurers provide cost-free birth control coverage.

Legal experts noted that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule next month on the constitutionality of the health care reform law, and could overturn all or parts of the 2010 law and render the latest lawsuits moot.

In addition, the part of the mandate that deals with religious groups does not go into effect for more than a year, and the Obama administration is currently processing feedback from Catholic groups – including many who filed lawsuits – on how to accommodate their concerns in the final regulation.

Dioceses and many of the groups that filed lawsuits will likely be exempt from the mandate, so the courts may not grant them standing as plaintiffs. One of the plaintiffs, Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio, last week announced that it was dropping its health insurance coverage because the mandate would force it to violate Catholic teaching. But the university’s insurance policy indicates it is exempt from the mandate.

The Cleveland-based law firm Jones Day, which is representing the various Catholic groups in the lawsuits, declined to respond to specific questions about the suit, saying only that the firm “looks forward to presenting its clients’ cases in court.”

Jenkins said that the decision to file a lawsuit now, before the birth control policy goes into effect and before the mandate is finalized, was taken because the negotiations could take months, “making it impossible for us to plan for and implement any changes to our health plans by the government-mandated deadlines.”

The Rev. Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life, an abortion opponent who filed suit against the contraception mandate in February, added that Monday’s mass filing could expedite a high court review that could settle the issue sooner rather than later.

“When there are multiple federal lawsuits on the same issue in different parts of the country, this can create the potential kind of conflict that the Supreme Court may be more likely to resolve,” Pavone said.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the administration’s insistence on continuing with the mandate left church leaders with little choice. The Archdiocese of New York was one of the plaintiffs that filed suit Monday.

“We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress — and will keep at it — and there’s still no fix,” Dolan said. “Time is running out, and our precious ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now.”

While the lawsuits effectively raise the pressure on the Obama administration in the ongoing negotiations – while raising the profile of the hierarchy’s religious liberty campaign this summer – the filings also prompted questions about how united the hierarchy is in challenging the Obama administration on the contraception mandate.

Just 13 out of nearly 200 dioceses in the U.S. are party to the lawsuits. While the Washington-based U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is “facilitating and coordinating” the lawsuits, the hierarchy’s public policy arm itself has not joined in as a plaintiff.

“Our bases are covered (by these lawsuits). Our concerns are addressed. No need to pile on,” Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a USCCB spokesperson, explained.

Instead, they’re revamping how congregations mobilize voters by focusing on a broader set of issues than in the past. Preachers are largely avoiding the political fray, and hot-button social issues are relegated to simmer in low-profile church study groups.

Members of St. Stephan's United Church of Christ in Newark, N.J., worship on a Sunday morning. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger of Newark

Why? For one, Americans are growing impatient with religious politicking: 54 percent want houses of worship to keep out of politics (up from 52 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 1996), according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Churches seem to be responding.

“The biggest change we see is a drop-off in the percentage of people saying they hear politics from the pulpit,” said David Campbell, a University of Notre Dame political scientist whose Faith Matters project tracked 3,100 people over five years.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” Campbell added. “People say they don’t want to hear about politics in church, and they’re actually hearing less of it.”

Still, that doesn’t mean the public is clamoring for a totally secularized public square. Some believe the backlash is against a particular type of religious activism that aligns closely with one party’s agenda or set of candidates.

“When people say they want religious organizations out of politics, they mean religious organizations telling people who to vote for,” said Gordon Whitman, director of public policy for PICO, a national network of more than 1,000 faith-based organizations. “We find … lots of consensus that our religious values should inform our positions on issues.”

In April, PICO launched a national campaign to enlist congregations in registering low-income voters and championing multiple issues of “economic justice.” Missouri pastors are now leading efforts to cap payday lending rates at 36 percent. Minnesota clergy are rallying parishioners and others to oppose a new voter ID initiative, which they say would disenfranchise low-income residents and others who lack state-issued ID cards.

For religious conservatives, social issues still matter in 2012, but they’re not always being billed as top priorities.

Hispanic evangelicals, for instance, criticized President Obama earlier this month for supporting same-sex marriage and remain opposed to abortion on demand. But those concerns won’t trump the more pressing matter of immigration reform, which could lead to endorsements for Obama and Democrats running for Congress.

That’s according to Miguel Rivera, chairman of the board for the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, whose membership includes leaders from 16,000 churches.

“We are very happy with the outcome of the referendum (banning gay marriage) in North Carolina,” Rivera said. “But we hope our politicians will understand that this type of agenda is no longer acceptable if we want our country to unite again and work for the betterment of our communities.”

The National Association of Evangelicals plans to use soft-sell techniques in mobilizing its 45,000 churches to impact votes. Churches won’t receive candidate scorecards, which “are often thinly disguised partisan devices,” according to Galen Carey, NAE’s vice president for government relations. Instead, they’ll be equipped with resources for studying what the Bible says about such issues as immigration and marriage.

“Churches are wary of becoming involved in a very partisan way, or campaigning on issues that might be controversial, because their mission is to reach their whole communities,” Carey said.

Religious involvement in partisan politics is driving Americans, especially those under 35, away from organized religion, according to Campbell. Some rising evangelical leaders see this young adult drift, documented in this year’s Millennial Values Survey, as a factor that makes nonpartisanship a practical necessity for churches seeking to grow and thrive.

“The last generation of Christians saw (the two major parties) as strategic allies in pushing their agendas,” said Jonathan Merritt, the 29-year-old evangelical author of “A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars.” “The next generation is reconsidering how that has blinded us and harmed us.”

Being nonpartisan is proving a tricky task in the political arena. Example: When Pastor Paul Slack of New Creation Church in Minneapolis makes a faith-based case against a voter ID initiative in Minnesota, he frames it as fighting against a GOP agenda.

“It’s politically motivated,” Slack said at an April press conference. “Voter ID is designed intentionally to make it harder for certain Minnesotans to vote. … We need to get more people at the polls so they can take part in sharing the common life together because that is indeed a value of our faith.”

Come October, however, all bets for nonpartisanship will be off, at least in churches participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday. The Alliance Defense Fund is urging pastors to preach Oct. 7 on political issues and endorse specific candidates in defiance of Internal Revenue Service codes for tax-exempt institutions.  More than 250 pastors have already signed up, including Ron Johnson Jr., senior pastor of Living Stones Church in Crown Point, Ind.

Churchgoers “have the opportunity to vote with their feet,” said Johnson, who preached in 2008 on why voting for Obama would be immoral. He’s now running for state representative.

“If they don’t like the messaging, then they don’t have to worship in our congregation.”

Some churches were silent on the issue. At others, pastors spoke against the president’s decision Wednesday — but kindly of the man himself. A few blasted the president and his decision. A minority spoke in favor of the decision and expressed understanding of the president’s change of heart.

Bishop Timothy Clarke, head of the First Church of God, a large African-American church with a television ministry in Columbus, Ohio, was perhaps most typical. He felt compelled to address the president’s comments at a Wednesday evening service and again Sunday morning. He was responding to an outpouring of calls, emails and text messages from members of his congregation after the president’s remarks.

What did he hear from churchgoers? “No church or group is monolithic. Some were powerfully agitated and disappointed. Others were curious — why now? to what end? Others were hurt. And others, to be honest, told me it’s not an issue and they don’t have a problem with it.”

What did the bishop tell his congregation? He opposes gay marriage. It is not just a social issue, he said, but a religious one for those who follow the Bible. “The spiritual issue is ground in the word of God.”

That said, “I believe the statement the president made and his decision was made in good faith. I am sure because the president is a good man. I know his decision was made after much thought and consideration and, I’m sure, even prayer.”

Clarke asked his church “to pray for the president and pray this will not become a political football with uncivil language and heated rhetoric. We can disagree on this, as we do on many things, and still love each other.”

The conflicted sentiments within African-American churches reflect a broader struggle in the American public. A USA Today Poll showed that slightly more than half of Americans agreed with the president’s decision. A scientifically valid breakdown of African-Americans was not available, but past polls have shown blacks generally opposed to gay marriage.

African-Americans are a key voting bloc for the president this November. In 2008, exit polls showed Obama lost to John McCain among white voters but won more than 95% of the African-American vote.

Dwight McKissic, senior pastor at the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said last week he would not speak on gay marriage Sunday because it was Mother’s Day and his wife would lead the church.

However, he planned to focus directly on the topic in next week’s sermon. “President Obama has betrayed the Bible and the black church with his endorsement of same-sex marriage,” McKissic said.

On the opposite side of the issue, pastor Enoch Fuzz of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church of Nashville, Tenn., said last week that he understood why many pastors opposed gay marriage, but he planned to discuss Sunday why he supports gay marriage. “I know many in the black community have trouble accepting gay marriage,” he said. “But all of us have gay friends or family, and we love them.”

Fuzz said he thinks the president’s comments won’t hurt him politically, although some African-American Christians may be upset with him. “There’s really no better option. People are not going to go out and vote for Mitt Romney.”

In Columbus, Mayor Michael Coleman is confident black churches and voters will stick with the president, even if they disagree over gay marriage. The four-term African-American mayor made the same conversion himself on the issue of gay marriage — for the same reasons — this year.

“I had to evolve on the issue and think it through, too, and I came to the conclusion it was the right thing,” said Coleman, a Democrat who supports Obama. “When it is the right thing to do, politics is irrelevant.”

Coleman discussed his change with the leader of Columbus’ largest black church. “He disagrees with me rather strongly,” Coleman says. Will it endanger his political support? “No. We’re very close.”

Obama won’t be abandoned by black churches either, not in the key swing state of Ohio, Coleman said. “Many in the pastoral community appreciate his courage in making the decision, even if they disagree,” Coleman says.

In North Carolina, where black churches helped pass a constitutional amendment last week banning gay marriage, Ron Gates, president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Asheville/Buncombe County, decided not to focus on gay marriage in his Sunday sermon but instead make it “a footnote,” so his continued support for the amendment was clear.

“I support my president and love my president, but I think he is wrong,” said Keith Ogden, pastor of the predominantly black Hill Street Baptist Church in Asheville. “He is not God, and he doesn’t speak for all black folk because he is African-American.”

(Dennis Cauchon writes for USA Today.)

(Contributing: Bob Smietana of The Tennessean (Nashville); Jon Ostendorff of the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times.)

While the 5-4 decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez was primarily aimed at public colleges and universities, some conservatives say the decision has upended university religious life, with both public and private schools reconsidering nondiscrimination rules.

Now, nearly two years after the decision involving the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, the case is causing strife across U.S. college campuses:

– InterVarsity Christian Fellowship says 41 of its campus chapters have faced challenges since the Supreme Court decision. Many have been resolved, but the IVCF chapter at the State University of New York at Buffalo plans to appeal its loss of official recognition for asking a gay student leader to resign when he would not accept its belief statement.

– In one of the most visible debates, private Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., has said some religious groups won’t be officially recognized if they require certain beliefs or do not allow all members to compete for leadership roles. On the website about its nondiscrimination policy, the school cited the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in defending the constitutionality of the rules.

– Lawmakers in Ohio and Arizona passed bills to ensure that public colleges and universities didn’t go down the same road as Hastings. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, said he would veto similar legislation only because it also included private universities that receive more than $24 million in state funds — namely, Vanderbilt.

David French, senior counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice, said there’s been an uptick in challenges to religious campus activity since the 2010 case, but he expects Vanderbilt to be the exception rather than rule. He argues the so-called “all-comers policies” for religious groups, such as Vanderbilt’s, are unfair as long as sororities or all-male glee clubs can discriminate based on gender.

“Very few universities have tried to implement all-comers policies in the aftermath of CLS v. Martinez,’’ said French, who has defended student religious groups for more than a decade. “They recognize the fundamental absurdity of an all-comers policy.’’

More than a dozen religious groups have determined they cannot or will not comply with Vanderbilt’s stance, which prompted members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus to complain to school officials that religious student groups are being targeted. They cited a now-unrecognized campus group that was told it must remove a requirement that its leaders have a personal commitment to Jesus.

“Belief-based or status-based requirements are inconsistent with our nondiscrimination policy,” said Vanderbilt spokeswoman Beth Fortune when asked about that group. She also said the policy “does not target specific student groups.”

Jim Lundgren, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s  senior vice president, said his organization is currently helping several chapters beyond Vanderbilt and Buffalo that are facing questions about their policies. IVCF officials argue that allowing chapters to determine how to pick their leaders helps maintain their values.

“We just want to have a place on college campuses and allow our perspective to be there in the kind of mix of ideas and beliefs,” said Lundgren. “We think that’s part of what a great college education is about.”

Robert Shibley, senior vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), said the Vanderbilt controversy confirms what his organization cautioned against after the Hastings case when it wrote 271 schools to say the decision did not require a policy change on their campuses.

“This is along the lines of what I feared, that Vanderbilt is effectively establishing that some religions are acceptable on its campus,” he said, “and others are now beyond the pale at Vanderbilt.”

Although there have not been wholesale changes across academia, there has been substantial debate over potential or actual policy changes on some campuses.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, sees the Martinez decision “lurking in the background” of other cases. He filed suit in February on behalf of the Christian anti-abortion group Make Up Your Own Mind at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The school, which does not have an all-comers policy like Hastings, was not going to formally recognize the group because officials deemed it nonreligious.

“We don’t want the government determining whether a group is or is not religious,” he said.

The school has since officially recognized Make Up Your Own Mind; Tedesco said the ADF is working on a settlement.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which last fall permitted the Christian singing group Psalm 100 to retain its recognition after a dispute over its exclusion of a gay member, is now reviewing its nondiscrimination policy.

The Christian Legal Society chapter at the center of the Supreme Court case became so small when it lost recognition that it no longer exists, said Kim Colby, senior counsel with the CLS’ Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Other chapters have been questioned without losing their status.

“If you can give a broad exemption to the fraternities and sororities, you can’t give a narrow exemption to the religious groups,” she said.

(RNS) President Obama and his family pray during Easter services at Allen Chapel AME Church in Washington on April 4, 2010. As many as four in 10 Americans cannot identify the president as a Christian. RNS file photo courtesy Pete Souza/The White House.

Voters do better identifying Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, according to a poll released Thursday (May 10) by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service. A slim majority of voters — 51 percent — knows the presumed Republican presidential nominee is Mormon.

“Wow. He said it 100 times that he’s not a Muslim,” said Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the American Islamic Congress, expressing surprise over the persistent number of American voters (16 percent) who make the mistake.

Is there something insidious behind the belief, a concerted attack to link the president with a religion that’s considered alien — or worse — by some Americans?

“I think it’s more a lack of information than an attack on him,” said Al-Suwaij.

While Americans across the board get the president’s religion wrong, the religious group that most often thinks Obama is Muslim is white evangelical Protestants (24 percent). American unaffiliated with a religious group make the error least often: just 7 percent identify Obama as Muslim.

Daniel Cox, PRRI’s research director, said the small but not insignificant sliver of Americans who still believe Obama is Muslim is “fascinating.”

“Quite frankly, I’m not really sure what to make of it other than this person, although he speaks quite comfortably about his faith, doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve,” Cox said. “It’s an important part of who he is, but it’s not an important part of his public persona.”

The poll also found that white evangelical Protestants, who were suspicious of Romney in the early GOP primaries, are warming up to Romney now that he’s the presumptive nominee.

Romney’s support among white evangelicals has jumped 27 percent since October; evangelicals support him over Obama, 68 to 19 percent.

“There are clear signs that white evangelical Protestants are moving beyond any reservations they may have held earlier in the campaign about Romney’s Mormon faith,” said Cox.

Earlier this year, when primary voters faced more choices, evangelicals showed a preference for Catholics Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, who campaigned hard on social issues dear to conservative Christians before dropping out.

“Americans want someone with strong religious convictions, but they don’t have to be the same as their own,” said Cox. “The exception is white evangelicals, who want them to be the same.”

But with a Mormon now the presumptive GOP nominee, that’s no longer a possibility for evangelicals, and the poll shows they are coalescing around Romney, Cox continued.  “It’s a binary choice for them between someone who is on the right side of their issues and someone who is not.”

White evangelicals — depending on how the term is defined and how the question is asked – make up between 20 and 25 percent of American voters. Among Republicans, they are a particularly powerful bloc, representing about 40 percent of GOP voters.

Obama’s support lies in Catholic and mainline Protestant territory. Catholic voters overall say they would be more likely to vote for Obama (46 percent) than Romney (39 percent), though white Catholic voters state a preference for Romney over Obama (48 to 37 percent).

The scenario of four years ago, in which Obama enjoyed strong support among Hispanic Catholics and weaker support among white Catholics, seems to be playing out again.

White mainline Protestant voters also prefer Obama over Romney (50 to 37 percent) and religiously unaffiliated voters stand even more firmly in the Obama camp (57 to 22 percent).

The poll also showed:

– Obama maintains a significant lead over Romney in a head-to-head matchup (47 to 38 percent).

– Sixteen percent of voters have yet to make up their minds about a presidential candidate. Among this group, Obama holds a slight edge (42 to 37 percent).

– More than 60 percent of white evangelical, white mainline Protestant and Republican voters know that Romney is Mormon. Less than half of Catholic and Democratic voters know this.

The poll, of 1,006 Americans surveyed between May 2 and 6, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Land, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, issued the two-page apology Wednesday (May 9), a week after a five-hour meeting with African-American leaders and other Southern Baptist officials.

Because of that meeting, “I have come to understand in sharper relief how damaging my words were,” he wrote in the statement released through his denomination’s news service.

Land had previously apologized for his comments, which charged Democrats and civil rights leaders with exploiting the killing of the unarmed Florida teen. He also has apologized for failing to attribute the material he used when discussing the case on his radio show.

The latest apology included references to his “insensitivity” towards Martin’s family, and a clarification that “racial profiling is a heinous injustice” and that he does not believe U.S. racism is a myth.

Land also confessed that he “impugned the motives” of President Obama and civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

“It was unchristian and unwise for me to have done so,” he wrote, adding that he sent them letters of apology asking for forgiveness. “God alone is the searcher of men’s hearts. I cannot know what motivated them in their comments in this case.”

An investigatory committee is looking into charges that some of Land’s comments may have been plagiarized. In a Wednesday statement, Steve Faith, chairman of the ERLC’s trustees, said ERLC leaders expect to make a public statement about the probe by June 1.

“The trustees are aware of their responsibility to the Convention and to the watching world,” Faith said.

The meeting with Land included Fred Luter, the New Orleans pastor expected to be elected in June as the SBC’s first African-American president; leaders of black Southern Baptist groups and two former SBC presidents, Frank Page and Paige Patterson.

Ed Stetzer, a researcher for the Southern Baptist Convention who criticized Land’s comments, said he was grateful that black Southern Baptist leaders confronted Land, and wished more white leaders had spoken up.

“I am very glad that Dr. Land listened to them and apologized,” Stetzer wrote Wednesday on his blog.

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said, less than a week after Vice President Joe Biden also backed same-sex marriage.

“I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama said. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.”

Obama’s announcement on Wednesday marked a shift in his religious views on marriage.

When he was campaigning for the Senate in 2004, Obama said: ”What I believe, in my faith, is that a man and a woman, when they get married, are performing something before God, and it’s not simply the two persons who are meeting.”

Obama repeated that sentiment in a 2008 campaign event at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, saying “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. For me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

But on Wednesday, Obama cited his faith as part of the reason he changed his views:

“This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and (Michelle Obama), you know, feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others.

“But, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and hopefully the better I’ll be as president.”

News of Obama’s “evolution” quickly spread on Twitter. Here’s a sampling of what religious leaders had to say:

(If you have trouble viewing this Storify feature with your web browser, you can also see it here.)

Two “agree to disagree” proposals were soundly defeated during separate votes by the nearly 1,000 delegates gathered for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in Tampa, Fla.

One proposal would have replaced the “incompatible” phrase in the Book of Discipline, which contains the denomination’s laws and doctrines. Both proposals sought to soften the disputed doctrine by adding more ambiguous statements about homosexuality.

Gay rights advocates in the UMC viewed the compromise proposals as the best chance to advance their cause at this year’s General Conference, which convenes every four years. On Friday, delegates are expected to debate the church’s bans on noncelibate gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

With nearly 8 million members in the U.S., the UMC remains the country’s largest mainline Protestant denomination. But United Methodism is shrinking in the U.S. and growing in Africa and Asia, shifting the balance of power to overseas conservatives. Nearly 40 percent of the delegates gathered in Tampa live outside the U.S.

Thursday’s debate put the denomination’s wide diversity on display – as gays and lesbians pleaded for recognition of their “sacred worth” and an African delegate, speaking through an interpreter, compared homosexuality to bestiality.

The proposals defeated on Thursday would have acknowledged that diversity, but, some conservatives argued, at the cost of muddying traditional doctrines.

One proposal would have changed the Book of Discipline to say that gays and lesbians are “people of sacred worth” and that church members differ about “whether homosexual practices (are) contrary to the will of God.”

The “incompatible” phrase would have remained, but the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a pastor in Leawood, Kansas, argued that his proposal would “acknowledge our disagreement on a huge issue that is separating churches in North America today.”

That proposal was defeated by a tally of 54 – 46 percent.

“I see no reason why we should state (in the Book of Discipline) that we disagree,” said the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, former president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. “We disagree on almost every issue we consider.”

The delegates defeated another compromise proposal by an even wider margin: 61 to 39 percent. The resolution would have acknowledged a “limited understanding” of human sexuality and called on the church to “refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices until the Spirit leads us to new insight.”

The Rev. Steve Wendy of Texas argued that the compromise would cause confusion and lead the church to “stumble in our witness.”

“If you look at our largest congregations, and crunch the numbers, they are all reaching young adults successfully,” Wendy said. “And, overwhelmingly, they teach and proclaim God’s truth without compromise.”

But Jennifer Ihlo, a lay delegate from the Baltimore/Washington Conference, argued in favor of the compromise. “I want to be clear that this is not an abstract issue. This is about people who are being harmed by the church and by the use of the `incompatibility’ language,” Ihlo said.

“I am a lesbian and a child of God and I strongly urge the body to support this compromise language so that gay youth … will recognize that the church loves them and God loves them and the violence and pain and suicide will stop.”

After the proposals were defeated on Thursday, gay rights activists flooded the assembly floor and disrupted the session by singing the hymn “What Does the Lord Require of You?”

Indiana Bishop Michael Coyner, chair of the morning session, told the protesters, “I think you’re actually hurting your point.” When the protesters refused to stop singing, Coyner closed the session, sent the delegates to an early lunch and threatened to bar protesters from the convention hall in the afternoon.

Church leaders and the protesters later worked out a compromise, according to United Methodist News Service. On Thursday afternoon, the delegates shifted their attention to clergy pension plans, leaving key votes on gay clergy and same-sex marriage to Friday, the last day of General Conference.

The new rules issued by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, will require all Caritas Internationalis officials make a formal promise of fidelity to church teachings and leaders.

The organization is now under the supervision of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, which oversees the Catholic Church’s charitable activities, while the pope is given the right to appoint three of its board members. Bishop Bernard Hebda of Gaylord, Mich., has been chosen as one of the Vatican-appointed board members.

From now on, all Caritas Internationalis statements – particularly “any text with doctrinal or moral content or orientations” – and activities will have to be authorized in advance by the Vatican, except in case of “grave humanitarian emergencies.”

“Cor Unum” will also appoint an ecclesiastical assistant tasked with promoting the “Catholic identity” of Caritas Internationalis, and the Vatican’s Secretariat of State will closely supervise the confederation’s contacts with foreign governments.

The new rules will not directly affect Catholic Relief Services, the official aid agency of the U.S. Catholic bishops. But Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the pontifical council, explained in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, that bishops could be “inspired” by the new rules to revise the statutes of national Catholic charities.

The Vatican move is part of a more general drive to promote Catholic identity in Catholic aid operations at all levels. Critics have complained that Catholic charities operate often like secular nongovernmental organizations and partner with groups that sometimes don’t share Catholic values, including the church’s opposition to birth control.

In a message addressed to the confederation’s general assembly last May, Pope Benedict XVI warned that without an explicit reference to God, aid work risked “falling prey to harmful ideologies.” He also warned that, as Caritas Internationalis shared the church’s mission, the Holy See was entitled to exercise oversight of its operations.

According to Caritas Internationalis secretary general, Michel Roy, the new rules should be seen as a step to “integrate” the organization’s operations within the Holy See and will reinforce Catholic advocacy on behalf of the poor, “because we will be able to speak in the name of the Church.”

For the first time, the level of strong support for gay marriage is equal to the level of strong opposition, researchers report. In the April 4-15 survey, 22 percent of Americans say they strongly favor permitting legal marriage for gays and lesbians; an identical percentage said they strongly oppose it.

In 2008, strong opposition was twice as high as support — 30 percent vs. 14 percent.

In 2004, when a host of anti-gay marriage ballot measures helped propel social conservatives to the polls, opposition was more than three times higher than support, 36 percent to 11 percent.

In comparison to the changes in views on gay marriage, not much has changed concerning support for legal abortion. In 2009, less than 50 percent of Americans favored legal abortion but that support rebounded to more than half of the U.S. population and has generally fit trends dating to 1995.

This time around, as in recent election cycles, voters say social issues — such as gay marriage and abortion — are not as important as the economy and jobs. While more than 80 percent of Americans cite the economy and jobs as top voting issues, far fewer rated abortion (39 percent) and gay marriage (28 percent) as very important.

The survey on gay marriage was based on interviews with 1,514 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.