BOB ABERNETHY, host: Welcome, I’m Bob Abernethy. It’s good to have you with us. Today, a special report on the events and issues we see ahead in 2011. We do this with the help of Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program, Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service, and E.J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution, the Washington Post, and Georgetown University. Before we begin our discussion, as we close out the first decade of the new millennium we remember some of the stories that set the stage for the news we expect to cover in 2011 and beyond. Our managing editor Kim Lawton took a look back at the events of the last decade.

KIM LAWTON, managing editor: The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were perhaps the defining moment of the decade, and the repercussions are still being felt on many fronts. In the wake of the tragedy, mainstream Muslim leaders tried to spread a message that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism. But those efforts were complicated by an expanding extremist movement that recruits over the Internet, as well as several high-profile arrests of Muslims plotting more attacks. American Muslims worked to define their place in US society, but many felt unfairly targeted by enhanced security measures and what they saw as a rising tide of Islamophobia. President Obama made improving relations with the Muslim world one of the priorities of his new administration.

The 9/11 attacks led to American involvement in long and difficult wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Religious and ethical leaders debated whether each conflict was just. President George W. Bush argued for a doctrine of preventive war, the idea that it was moral to attack a country to prevent it from attacking us first. The ethical debates intensified with revelations that the US was using torture as a means of getting information. After thousands of deaths of troops and civilians, President Obama announced the end of combat operations in Iraq and the intention to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan.

Economic crises dominated much of the end of the decade as recession, unemployment and foreclosures took a toll on faith-based groups and the people they serve. Religious institutions were forced to slash their budgets and lay off staff even as they were asked to do more to help needy people.

Religion continued to be a potent force in politics. In 2000 and 2004, President Bush rallied religious conservatives. He set up a new White House office to expand government partnerships with faith-based social service organizations. Analysts spoke of a God gap, with voters seeing the Democratic Party as unfriendly toward religion. In the run-up to the 2008 elections, Democrats and the Obama campaign developed an unprecedented outreach to compete for religious votes. Many in that faith coalition were disappointed the Democrats didn’t build on the momentum in the 2010 midterm elections. Meanwhile, religious conservatives were energized by the Tea Party movement and vowed new activism leading up to the 2012 elections. Religious groups across the spectrum were involved in policy debates, from health care to immigration and gay marriage.

Issues surrounding homosexuality provoked bitter debates within religious institutions and American society as a whole. The 2003 election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the US Episcopal Church brought the worldwide Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, even as other denominations continue to debate the role of gay clergy. In 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, with four other states and the District of Columbia following suit. The issue continues to work its way through the courts.

For the Roman Catholic Church, a dramatic changing of the guard with the 2005 death of John Paul II, who had been pope for more than 25 years, and the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. For the US Catholic Church, much of the decade was focused on addressing a massive clergy sex abuse crisis, enacting new guidelines to prevent abuse, and confronting litigation that saw more than two billion dollars in payouts to victims. In 2010, the clergy abuse scandal exploded across many parts of Europe and posed new challenges to the Vatican and top church leaders.

The new millennium began with a sense of relief that a predicted Y2K computer meltdown never materialized. It ends with the development of social media like Facebook and Twitter offering new online possibilities for personal connection and outreach, enabling information to be disseminated at lightning speed—both for good and for ill.

ABERNETHY: Kim, many thanks for that. Welcome to you, to Kevin Eckstrom, and to E.J. Dionne. E.J., we have a new Congress, Republican control of the House, more Republican votes in the Senate. Walk us through that a little bit. What do you expect that will mean for some of the social issues that are of most concern to religious communities?

EJ DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): You know, watching Kim’s set-up piece I was thinking of Yogi Berra’s great line: ‘Predictions are hard, especially when they’re about the future.” And who would have imagined a decade unfolding the way this last decade just unfolded? So I think we’re all in a difficult situation here. I think when you look forward to this Congress, so much of it is not going to be about social issues. The last Democratic Congress kind of acted to get some of those out of the way, notably don’t ask don’t tell. I think they really wanted that through because they knew it was going to be very difficult this time over. You may have some debate about abortion around the healthcare bill. Republicans want to repeal it. I don’t think they’ll be able to but they going to have a variety of ways of trying to hem in President Obama in sort of putting it into effect. So I think you may see it there. I think one of the sleeper issues will be fights we might have around the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, where you have, if nothing else for purely political reasons it’s a question where conservatives can talk about it as an economic issue: should we be spending the money? But there are always issues related to cultural values that get into those debates. So I suspect you are going to see some of those arguments around the humanities and arts endowments. Personally, I hope it doesn’t happen that way, but I think that is going to happen.

ABERNETHY: How about immigration?

LAWTON: Well, I was going to say that I am going to be watching to see how some of the evangelical political activists maneuver with the Tea Party politicians that got elected. You know, in this last election there was so much talk about how the Tea Party was so ascendant and there were a lot of religious conservatives that were supportive of the Tea Party. But when you get to issues like immigration or some of the other issues involving a social safety net for the poor, evangelicals don’t always line up as economic conservatives. And so while they might be hoping for some action on abortion or maybe even some of the gay marriage type issues—I don’t know that that’s going to come up in Congress, but I’m going to be watching some of the economic issues that do have some moral implications to see how much evangelicals, and some Catholics who were supportive of the Tea Party—where they come down.

ECKSTROM (Editor, Religious New Service): Right, and there are a lot of moral issues that a lot of religious groups care about. And so I think what you’re going to have is maybe a different set than what we’ve seen in the last couple years. Whereas under the Democratic Congress we were talking about moral issues like the environment and the minimum wage increase and things like that, you’re probably not going to see as much of that with a Republican House. Instead, you’ll have issues that maybe more conservatives tend to latch on to. But it’s not that these social issues are going to disappear, it’s just that there are going to be a different set of them.

DIONNE: That’s a good point, because you are going to talking more and more about budget deficits and cuts in government programs, and I think it’s going to be fascinating to see how religious groups that sometimes seem to be aligned with conservatives on some of the cultural questions are actually going to be saying no, you can’t cut this program for the poor or that program for the poor, because there are a lot of Catholics, a lot of evangelicals, and many in the rest of the religious community—mainline Protestants, Jews, Muslims—who really want to protect some of those programs. So I think their voices are actually going to be very important at a time of budget stress.

ECKSTROM: And one issue I think that’s worth watching that we’ve already seen indications of is that House Republicans want to hold hearings on American Muslims and the radicalization of American Muslims – sort of home-grown terror threats – and what’s going wrong within American Islam that it’s allowing this to happen? So it’s a different kind of religious issue but one that’s already going to be on Congress’s agenda.

ABERNETHY: Before we leave that, E.J., what about the tone, the spirit that you expect. Is it going to be awful?

DIONNE: I’m not very optimistic that we’re going to see an outbreak of comity and friendship across party lines. On the Muslim hearings, having Congress sort of investigate a religious group in the country raises all kinds of questions, which I hope get raised. I’m not sure that the deal that President Obama reached with the Republicans on taxes can be easily replicated across other issues. After all, tossing out about $858 billion is a lot easier than cutting $400 billion or whatever they decide to do. So I think it’s going to be a very difficult couple of years.

LAWTON: And also, sort of in the backdrop, this coming year in politics is going to be the run up to the 2012 presidential election, and so that’s going to be complicating anything anyone wants to get done because there’s going to be a lot of posturing as people try to set themselves up for the next presidential election.

DIONNE: Which brings us to some very interesting debates inside the Republican Party. Your point about the Tea Party and the Christian conservatives overlapping but distinct groups—how are they going to play those roles inside the Republican fight for the nomination?

LAWTON: And a lot of religious conservatives were very unhappy with the Republican establishment, felt like they took them for granted, Republicans took the religious conservatives for granted—wanted them to come out and work and vote but didn’t necessarily take care of their issues. It will be interesting to see whether they feel the same way about the Tea Party as well.

ABERNETHY: And back on this question of tone, everything perhaps is going to be made more dramatic by the fact that it’s going to be, this year, the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

LAWTON: It’s hard to believe that it was almost 10 years ago when those attacks happened and that really did set up a lot of difficult issues for us as a country, both in terms of the war and as well as in terms of interfaith relations. I know a lot of Muslim groups are sort of bracing after seeing in the previous year a lot of protests against mosques and things of that nature. They’re concerned about the atmosphere and a lot of Muslims I’m talking with are worried about what’s going to happen leading up to the 9/11 anniversary.

ABERNETHY: But Kevin, you or E.J. have made the point that we have this real problem of trying to deal with homegrown terrorism and terrorism here that just emerges out of the suburbs some place, and on the other hand protecting the civil rights of a whole group of people.

ECKSTROM: This is a huge challenge for American Muslims and one of the big debates within the American Muslim community right now is how much do they cooperate with law enforcement on trying to prevent these sorts of attacks that nobody wants to see? How much should parents report their kids if they’re acting strangely or going to bad Web sites or talking in radical terms? And there’s a lot of Muslims who are afraid of being entrapped by the FBI and being led into plots that they might not otherwise do. But then they also know that if they don’t report them nobody else is going to and if there’s an attack, things are only going to get worse.

DIONNE: You’ve got tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in American suburbs, living middle-class lives, and if one or two or three or five of those thousands of kids is discovered to get involved in terrorism, suddenly we’re talking about these very middle-class, classically American places being breeding grounds for terrorism. I think one thing that is going to sort encourage that is if we make this big American Muslim middle class feel excluded from the rest of us, and we’re really going to have to think that through. Of course we don’t want home-grown terrorism, but we’re nowhere like where the Europeans are, because we have this great tradition of upward mobility and inclusion in our country.

LAWTON: And this has been a challenge for American Muslims themselves within their communities. If we launch programs to combat homegrown terrorism, homegrown extremism, if we launch programs in our mosques, does that appear like we’re giving in to the stereotype that all Muslims are potential terrorists, and so they’ve really struggled within their community how to approach this problem. They want to look proactive. They want to look like they’re addressing this as good, loyal Americans, but how do you do that without giving into the perception?

ABERNETHY: Kevin, what do you expect to happen with the cultural center/mosque near Ground Zero?

ECKSTROM: Well, it’s going to be a challenge. They presumably have all of the zoning things that they need. They’ve got their permits and the city is going to allow them to build it. What they’re missing right now is the money. And it’s going to take them a while to raise as much money as they’re going to need, but it’s also going to be difficult to get, I think, a lot of people to support that because that center is so radioactive and it’s generated so much heat that there’s going to be a lot of people who maybe don’t want their names associated with it. And on the flip side, there’s a lot of Americans who don’t want the money coming from some foreign anonymous donor somewhere, so they have a big challenge there.

ABERNETHY: Now you were referring earlier to the fact that the beginning of 2011 may well seem like the beginning of the election campaign of 2012, E.J.

DIONNE: Right, and I think you’re going to see some sort of interesting positioning inside the Republican Party. I mean, we still don’t know if Sarah Palin is or is not going to run for president. Sarah Palin seems to be more representative of the Tea Party side of the right, although she has clearly some Christian conservative support. Mike Huckabee is going to be competing with her as the spokesperson for Christian conservatives, but every Republican running for president wants a piece of that vote, because it is such an important vote in the Republican primaries, and that’s going to start right now. It’s already started, before the show went on the air.

ECKSTROM: And I think something worth watching there is Mitt Romney, who is at the front of a lot of these polls, these straw polls, whether or not he tries to make the case about his Mormon faith again with the evangelical base. A lot of people say, you know, he did that; he doesn’t need to do it again. Other people say that he’s never going to win them over; there’s a certain amount of the base that’s just never going to accept a Mormon candidate. So I think it will be interesting to watch how he navigates the Mormon question.

ABERNETHY: And meanwhile, E.J., every pundit worth his salt is giving Obama advice about what he needs to do, how he needs to change himself, how he needs to change his language. Talk about that.

DIONNE: Well, the range of advice goes from you must be nicer to the Republicans and look like you’re a centrist to you’re political and moral obligation is to confront these guys and have a big argument so that the issues can be clear to the country. And I think he’s going to try to do a little of the former to say I’ve reached out my hand to them, and when the hand is rejected on certain issues, he’s going to flip to the second. But I think one of the things to look for is whether he does speak more in a moral and spiritual language both about himself and the underpinnings of his policies, but also about this sense of America can grab its position in the world back after a period when Americans felt we were in decline. I think there’s going to be some John Kennedy-esque rhetoric coming out him getting the country moving again in the coming year.

LAWTON: And the Democratic Party is going to have to figure out what it wants to do in terms of faith-based outreach. There was a lot of criticism from Democrats about how the party handled that in the last midterm elections and a lot of faith-based moderates and liberals and even some conservatives that don’t consider themselves Republicans felt that the party didn’t do enough to reach out to them, so that’s going to be something they’re trying to figure out as well.

ABERNETHY: Meanwhile the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is supposed to begin n 2011. What are your expectations there?

LAWTON: Well, there’s some really difficult ethical debates still lingering in terms of what America leaves behind in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of civil society and …

ABERNETHY: And safety and protection for the people who helped us.

LAWTON: Exactly. Religious minorities and people who were seen as being part of the American offensive—what’s going on with them and what responsibility does America have within that? And those are going to be difficult questions. I’ve been surprised how little the religious community has been focusing on these issues of war. It seemed like last year, in the last election, people just didn’t really talk about those ethical, moral issues.

ECKSTROM: And, you know, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the president’s problem with his base—you know, the liberal base is dissatisfied for any number of reasons. But it’s worth remembering that a good chunk of that base voted for him because he said he was going to close Guantanamo Bay, and it’s still open, and that he said he’d get us out of Afghanistan, and he actually sent more troops in. So there’s, I think, some ethical problems that he faces in terms of not moving fast enough on that issue.

DIONNE: Actually, he said he’d get us out of Iraq, and he said Afghanistan was the good war, and we’ll presumably continue to pull out of Iraq. My hunch is that if we have a withdrawal this year from Afghanistan it’s going to be very small. It’s clear that the new timeline that the administration wants seems to be 2014. And there’s going to be some opposition in his own party to not withdrawing more quickly. I also think some of the new conservatives who are less interventionist in Congress may also be a surprising opposition to a long commitment there.

ABERNETHY: Let me ask you to look at Europe and the Vatican. What do you expect there in terms of this ongoing struggle about the sex abuse of kids by priests? Anybody?

DIONNE: Everyone is silent.

ECKSTROM: Happy topic. Well, this pope has the unfortunate possibility of his legacy being presiding over this sex abuse scandal that reared its ugly head—that the church didn’t learn anything from the first time around. And I think he has made some progress in sort of admitting that the church needs to do some introspection and figure out what went wrong so that we don’t make this happen again. But the pope is going to be 84 in 2011. I don’t know how much more time he has left in that job, but probably a few years, and I think he’s going to be doing some legacy-making, because this is now at the point where he can still do some things and see what happens.

LAWTON: Well, so many people in the church are frustrated because they want to get beyond this issue but they just can’t do it, and so that’s been something they’ve all had to confront.

DIONNE: I think it’s sort of an argument between people who defend the Vatican and the church say look, they understand, they’ve tried to fix this, they’ve made some moves versus others who say that they still haven’t fully taken responsibility for changing the structures of the church. It’s a classic argument between more conservative or traditionalist people and people looking for greater change in the church because they think it needs it, and I think that is an ongoing struggle and that the sex abuse scandal is a piece of that larger struggle.

ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up, but before we quit, in this coming year do you see something happening or that might happen or do you see some person that you’re going to be paying particular attention to?

LAWTON: Well, we should also point out that last year a lot of the things we discussed we didn’t predict. So, as E.J. said, it’s hard to know that. I think it is going to be a pivotal year for religious groups and issues surrounding homosexuality, whether we’re talking court cases around gay marriage or whether we’re talking denominations still really struggling over how to handle gay clergy and gay bishops. And the Anglican Communion, which has really been torn about by this subject, is also going to have to face some tough questions this coming year.

ECKSTROM: I’m going to keep an eye on Archbishop Tim Dolan in New York, who is the new president of the Catholic bishops conference. He’s a media-savvy guy, he gives you a bear hug, he’s sort of a telegenic face for the church. But he’s no shrinking violet. He will take on the issues of the day, but in sort of a friendly kind of way. It will be interesting. The only real power he has is the power of the megaphone, and which issues he chooses for the bishops to emphasize.

DIONNE: I think that’s an excellent selection. I would say if I could combine Palin, Huckabee, Obama, Romney—we’re going to see if the nature of the discussion of religion in our politics changes substantially this year or not. As we’ve already said, there are challenges to each of those figures, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with it.

ABERNETHY: I have been wondering with respect to Iraq and now Afghanistan why there was no peace movement—not more of a peace movement. Do you think with Afghanistan, as we begin to come out of there, that there will be such a thing?

DIONNE: I think going into Afghanistan there was very broad support when we started because many people, except for pacifists and a few others who have legitimate reasons for opposing all war, most people thought this was kind of a just war response, so you didn’t have a big opposition. I think now a lot of people say God, this is a terrible mess. I don’t have a good answer coming out of it, and I think that sort of undercuts what might otherwise be a big peace movement.

ABERNETHY: Thanks, E.J., our time is up. Many thanks to Kim Lawton of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service, and E.J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution. That’s our program for now. I’m Bob Abernethy.

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BOB ABERNETHY, Anchor: After decades of debate and division, the US Episcopal Church this week said overwhelmingly that gays and lesbians are eligible to become bishops or serve in any other ordained ministry of the church. At their General Convention, Episcopal leaders also moved toward developing an official rite for blessing same-sex unions. These decisions are likely to widen the divide between Episcopalians and the worldwide 77-million-member Anglican Communion of which they are a part. Kim Lawton has our special report from Anaheim, California.

KIM LAWTON: At their meeting in Anaheim this week, Episcopal bishops, clergy, and lay representatives tackled a host of social issues, from global poverty to justice for Disneyland hotel workers. But the most divisive topic, once again, was homosexuality.

REV. IAN DOUGLAS (Episcopal Divinity School): It wouldn’t be a meeting of the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion if we didn’t somehow engage matters of human sexuality.

LAWTON: Despite concerns from many global Anglican partners, convention delegates overwhelmingly voted to move ahead on two of the most contentious questions: whether to ordain gay bishops and whether to bless same-sex unions. On the issue of gay bishops, the delegates asserted that “God has called and may call gays and lesbians to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.” The vote effectively ends a de facto moratorium that was approved three years ago, although it does not guarantee that more gay bishops will be consecrated.

Separately, the delegates also voted to move forward in developing liturgies for blessing same-sex relationships. The issue will be taken up again at the next General Convention in 2012. In the meantime, the measure allows local clergy leeway in blessing same-gender relationships, especially in states where gay marriage is legal.

Reverend Susan Russell is the outgoing president of Integrity, a group that works for the full inclusion of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people in the Episcopal Church.

REV. SUSAN RUSSELL (Integrity): I think the overwhelming message coming out of this convention, not only for LGBT people but for all who are looking for a community that that embraces peace, justice, tolerance, compassion, and the good news of God in Christ Jesus, is that the Episcopal Church welcomes you.

LAWTON: The measures passed in part because many conservative Episcopalians have left the denomination. Those remaining feel increasingly isolated.

BISHOP WILLIAM LOVE (Diocese of Albany, at press conference): It is very sad for me because I am a lifelong Episcopalian, I’m a lifelong Anglican, but first and foremost I am a lifelong Christian, and it is breaking my heart to see the church destroying itself in the manner in which we seem to be doing.

LAWTON: Many delegates here said they voted for the direction they believe God is calling their church to go in. But those votes pose new challenges for a global Communion that has already been strained close to a breaking point. There’s a lot riding on how what happened here gets interpreted around the world.

Many Anglicans, especially in Africa, Asia, and South America, were outraged in 2003 when the Episcopal Church approved the consecration of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the church’s first openly gay bishop. An emergency Communion report called on the US to ban on any future consecrations of gay bishops until an international consensus emerges.

The Communion’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, attended this meeting before the controversial votes took place.

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS: Along with many in the Communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart.

LAWTON: Much of this week’s debate centered on balancing Communion concerns with a desire to move forward.

BISHOP GENE ROBINSON: I believe with my whole heart that we all know where this is going to wind up. It is going to wind up with the full inclusion of all of God’s children in God’s church.

BISHOP PETER BECKWITH: I would concede that if indeed that it is the right thing to do, we should do it now. I do not believe it is the right thing to do.

BISHOP NATHAN BAXTER: While I am very, very much concerned about our covenant with the Communion and our mission, I am also concerned about our covenant with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

BISHOP SHANNON JOHNSTON: The Communion, for me, is too much to lose. There is too much at stake with mission and our ability to apprehend larger, wider truths that go way beyond our own small church and setting in the Western world.

LAWTON: Shannon Johnston, coadjutor bishop in the Diocese of Virginia, said he personally supported the gay ordination resolution, but voted against it because he didn’t want to further divide the Communion.

JOHNSTON (Diocese of Virginia): It was quite wrenching, because it took two of the core values of the church and juxtaposed them against each other, mission and inclusivity on the one hand and then the unity of the church on the other, which is no less a core value of the Gospel.

LAWTON: Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said her church is not fomenting division.

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: Schism is not a Christian act.

LAWTON: The approved resolutions reasserted the Episcopal Church’s desire to remain an active member of the Anglican Communion. But Bishop Jon Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles says that doesn’t mean total agreement with overseas churches about homosexuality.

BISHOP JON BRUNO (Diocese of Los Angeles): I think I would explain it to them that the context that we live in is totally different and that they have to be tolerant of our context as well as we are tolerant of their context. I still want to be in relationship with them fully.

LAWTON: Reverend Ian Douglas, a representative from Massachusetts, described the votes as being honest with the rest of the world about what the Episcopal Church stands for.

DOUGLAS: There’s no Communion without genuine relationship, and there’s no genuine relationship without truth-telling. So I see commitments to being in Communion and telling the truth about who we are as being of a whole.

LAWTON: Conservative Anglicans already don’t like what they’re hearing.

BISHOP DAVID ANDERSON (American Anglican Council): I think it signals to the rest of the Communion, the Anglican Communion, that the Episcopal Church wants to be a member only on its own terms, and that if terms are applied to it, then they will go their own way and have things the way they wish, and others can be with them or not.

LAWTON: David Anderson is among the Episcopalians who left the denomination over theological issues. He was ordained a bishop in the Anglican Church of Kenya. Disaffected Episcopalians, including four breakaway dioceses, have formed a rival jurisdiction called the Anglican Church in North America. They’re seeking recognition from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

ANDERSON: I see that as The Episcopal Church continues to go through these earthquakes of adopting things there is going to be a constant stream of both people and churches, perhaps more dioceses, that wind up leaving and coming over into the rest of the Anglican Communion.

LAWTON: But at the same time, many Episcopalians believe their actions here will help bring in other people who may have felt alienated in the past. Both sides say they’re anxious to focus on mission rather than division. I’m Kim Lawton in Anaheim, California.

TIM O’BRIEN, anchor: The issue of gay marriage is on the agenda as the US Episcopal Church holds its once-every-three-years General Convention in Anaheim, California.  For years, Episcopalians have been deeply divided over homosexuality.  One proposal being debated at this meeting would allow Episcopal churches to conduct same-sex weddings in the six states that have legalized gay marriage.  Currently, most mainline denominations do not officially allow same-sex weddings.  But the changing legal environment is adding new pressure.  Kim Lawton has our report.

KIM LAWTON: Boston’s historic Church of the Covenant has been an important place for Anne Crane and Sarah Perreault. The lesbian couple had their first date there in the late 1970s, and by the time Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage the two had been active members for more than 25 years, so a church wedding seemed the obvious choice.

SARAH PERREAULT: In particular we wanted to be married at our home church with our community and our family and friends.

LAWTON: But it was complicated. Church of the Covenant is dually aligned with two mainline denominations: the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (USA).  And while the UCC has no problem marrying same-sex couples, it’s against national Presbyterian policy.

ANNE CRANE: Well, it’s painful to know that the church that I’ve been a part of all my life does not recognize our relationship and our marriage as being a legitimate marriage.

LAWTON:  Church of the Covenant worked it out so that a retired UCC minister conducted the ceremony, and the Presbyterian side of the church officially stayed out of it.  Crane and Perreault say their wedding was beautiful and meaningful, but not quite everything they would have planned.

PERREAULT:  I felt badly because there were people that we would have liked to include in our ceremony who could not participate because they were ordained Presbyterian clergy. There was a real loss there.

Man at Protest:  “We are a couple…”

LAWTON:  For decades, mainline denominations have been wrestling over issues surrounding homosexuality: whether to ordain gay clergy and whether to recognize–and bless same-sex unions. Now that six states have legalized gay marriage, those battles are taking on a new urgency. Some church members are pushing the denominations to reassess their policies, while others are fighting to hold the line.

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an advocacy group that supports conservative positions within mainline denominations.

MARK TOOLEY:  The church shouldn’t just go along with what the wider society demands of it. But the church is ideally supposed to be faithful to timeless teachings that have been presented to the church through its Scripture and through its traditions.

Minister:  “To have and to hold…”

LAWTON: Currently, while the Unitarians and the UCC conduct gay marriages, mainline Protestant denominations as a rule don’t officially allow it. Clergy who participate in same-sex weddings could face church trials and even risk being defrocked.

Minister:  “I hereby pronounce you husband and husband…”

TOOLEY:  Traditionalists within those churches will strive to help to ensure there is as much fidelity as possible, by the clergy to the official teachings.

LAWTON: In the United Methodist Church, 83-year-old Richard Harding has a long history of activism for gay rights. He helped found Reconciling Retired Clergy, a network of retired pastors willing to perform gay marriages.

REV. RICHARD HARDING: There’s not a whole lot that they can do to we retired clergy, and there’s a whole lot that they can do to active clergy that they can’t do to us. And that’s why we’re stepping in.

LAWTON: Harding says he believes what he’s doing is the right thing, so he’s willing to risk any repercussions.

HARDING: We could be defrocked. I would be now sitting here as Mr. Harding instead of Reverend Harding. And in Massachusetts, a lay person can go for a day to the state house and get permission to officiate at a marriage. So I’d still be able to do it, only I just wouldn’t be a pastor anymore.

LAWTON: At Church of the Covenant, interim minister Jennifer Wegter-McNelly is an ordained Presbyterian pastor. She says her congregation has been put in a difficult position of trying to maintain support for gay members while still respecting the national denomination.

REV. JENNIFER WEGTER-MCNELLY: We have a long history and we’re very active, and so I think there is a lot of really thoughtful hard conversation about how do we be prophetic and remain faithful and connected to the churches that are our larger community?

LAWTON: So far, they’ve been able to do that by keeping same-sex weddings solely under the jurisdiction of the UCC part of their church. Other congregations don’t have that option. Episcopal clergy also can’t conduct gay marriages. In an effort to be even-handed, many Massachusetts Episcopal churches aren’t doing any weddings, gay or straight. Instead, Reverend Pam Werntz at Boston’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church says they provide a blessing for couples who are married by the state.

REV. PAM WERNTZ:  That could happen separately, it could happen at the courthouse and then a couple comes here for the ceremony, or it can happen in the same ceremony where a Justice of the Peace presides over the first part of the service and the priest presides over the blessing and often a Eucharist celebration.

LAWTON: The compromise may have helped circumvent some of the denominational difficulties, but Werntz says it was still painful for many members.

WERNTZ:  There were people that left the church in feeling a lot of sorrow and betrayal that the Episcopal Church couldn’t move as fast as I think it needed to move when same-sex marriage was legalized.

LAWTON: UCC minister Reine Abele, who does perform gay weddings, say churches need to be better at addressing social concerns.

REV. REINE ABELE: Churches generally are not the leading edge of cultural change in our society. They are often not the engine but the caboose.

LAWTON: But despite the new activism, mainline clergy continue to be conflicted over the issue, and those who support gay marriages still appear to be in the minority.

LAWTON: According to a recent survey by Public Religion Research, mainline clergy are generally more supportive of gay rights than Americans as a whole. But that doesn’t hold true when it comes to same-sex marriage. Only a third of mainline clergy support gay marriage. That number is just about the same for Americans overall.

TOOLEY: Often people in wider society are very surprised to learn that the mainline churches don’t already accept same sex marriage, because typically these churches, at least for the last 50, 60 years or more have been on the liberal side of social issues. But they have hung back on the marriage issue.

LAWTON: For many, it’s an issue of basic theology.

TOOLEY: Typically for Jews and Christians, marriage is a metaphor for faithfulness between God and his people and once you begin to redefine what marriage is you ultimately start to redefine who God is and that obviously and understandably is difficult for Christians and Jews.

LAWTON: In the Presbyterian Church (USA), Reverend Mary Holder Naegeli is among those urging the denomination to maintain its stand.

REV. MARY HOLDER NAEGELI: Homosexual practice is not God’s design for humanity. Not being God’s design for humanity, having these clear prohibitions in the Scripture make homosexual practice a sin. Homosexual marriage makes permanent a situation that God wants to redeem.

LAWTON: But others advocate a different interpretation of the Bible.

WEGTER-MCNELLY: Our call to be inclusive of all people comes from scripture.  It comes from faithfulness to God, it comes from understanding that all people are made in the image of God and it’s essential to support people in their relationships, to bless them and support them and nurture them.

LAWTON: For Wegter-McNelly, the issue also comes down to her pastoral responsibilities to the people in her pews.

WEGTER-MCNELLY:  Here gay marriage isn’t an abstract issue. It’s not a political issue.  It’s very much an issue of the people of the congregation being in community together. To tell people that this community that is the compass for your life is not going to bless and support you in your intimate relationship is kind of an impossibility.

LAWTON: But supporters of traditional marriage say pastors also have a responsibility to their faith and to the wider church.

HOLDER NAEGELI: Why would I, a representative of God, help people make permanent with a vow, I take marriage vows very seriously, but with a vow to make permanent then, seal something that God wouldn’t agree with?

LAWTON: As they celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, Anne Crane and Sarah Perreault are glad their church wedding worked out.

CRANE: It’s a liberating feeling, and it’s enabled me and us to just, to live our lives honestly and openly, and many people don’t have that opportunity and have to continue living a lie. And that’s the sad thing.

Minister: Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.  Amen.

LAWTON: But given the conflicts within the mainline churches, the situation is not likely to change any time soon.

I’m Kim Lawton in Boston.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now the Episcopal Church divisions over homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture. This week the U.S. Episcopal bishops went as far as they said they could to comply with the demand from the worldwide Anglican Communion that the U.S. church clarify its policies on gay issues. The bishops said they would “exercise restraint” on consecrating gay bishops and would not officially authorize same-sex blessings. Conservatives around the world say the bishops did not do enough. So the question remains: can the church avoid schism? Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: The Episcopal bishops gathered in New Orleans amid intense pressure from inside their own church and from their fellow members of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Top Anglican leaders had given the U.S. church until September 30 to state clearly that they will not consecrate any more gay bishops or authorize any sex-same blessings. Failure to do that, the leaders said, would have unspecified consequences for the Episcopal Church’s place in the Communion. Episcopal leaders said they answered those concerns, even if their document did not go as far as many Communion leaders had sought.

Bishop TOM SHAW (Diocese of Boston, at news conference): This document that we passed this afternoon shows how important inclusion in the Anglican Communion is for all parts of the Episcopal Church and how much we deeply respect the Anglican Communion.

LAWTON: But many conservatives say the response was inadequate. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan didn’t stay at the New Orleans meeting for the final vote.

Bishop ROBERT DUNCAN (Diocese of Pittsburgh): It’s not enough for the dioceses like my own that really don’t see a way to go forward within the Episcopal Church.

LAWTON: One of the strongest international critics, Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, said the U.S. bishops fell far short of what he was looking for. Akinola spoke at a conservative church gathering near Chicago this week. He was greeted by protesters who accused him of being anti-gay.

Anglican leaders from Africa, Asia and South America, the so-called Global South, have been building alliances with American conservatives who share their theological perspective. Overseas churches have consecrated several Americans as bishops who will work in the U.S.

Bishop JOHN GUERNSEY (Anglican Church of Uganda): I receive the authority given to me to oversee and care for the clergy and congregations of the Church of Uganda in the United States of America.

LAWTON: In New Orleans, the Episcopal bishops urged an immediate end to what they called these “foreign incursions.”

The bishops acknowledged their document doesn’t set any new policy. It’s not an outright ban on future gay bishops, but rather a promise to exercise restraint in consecrating any bishop whose “manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church.” Likewise, while the bishops promised as a body not to authorize public rites for blessing same sex unions, there is leeway for individual bishops to allow blessings in their dioceses.

Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (Presiding Bishop, U.S. Episcopal Church, at news conference): Not everyone was 100 percent happy with every word in this document, as you might imagine. But together we believe that we have found a place that all of us can stand together.

LAWTON: Many bishops argued that the international leaders do not have the authority to determine positions for the U.S. church, which is self-governing.

Bishop PETER LEE (Diocese of Virginia): The Anglican Communion is not a juridical group where there is a clear method of kicking someone out, to put it bluntly. So if we are — if our relationship is stressed with the rest of the Communion to the breaking point, the break will come from others, not from us.

LAWTON: New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the church’s first openly gay bishop, says he believes the New Orleans meeting will ease the tensions plaguing the Church.

Bishop GENE ROBINSON (Diocese of New Hampshire): The prediction was that this would be like Katrina II, you know, some horrible storm that would tear the Episcopal Church apart, and what actually happened was that the vast majority of the bishops of all persuasions came together for this common statement. And it’s really, really a miracle.

It’s unclear whether the bishops’ statement will be enough to satisfy other members of the Anglican Communion. The Communion’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, was traveling and did not have an immediate comment. He had been in New Orleans for nearly two days of closed-door meeting with the bishops, but left before they issued their statement.

Bishop LEE: I think it gave us an opportunity to let him see more of who we are as bishops, in a very different context than where he usually works, and it gave us an opportunity to hear some of his concerns from his perspective looking at the whole worldwide Communion.

LAWTON: Robinson acknowledged he had some frank exchanges with the archbishop.

Bishop ROBINSON: I understood him to be saying that we had to choose between fidelity to our gay and lesbian members and fidelity to the process of what he called “common discernment.” And I said that, as a gay man, choosing a process over human beings felt dehumanizing to me. And perhaps there were people who were shocked that I said that, but after all, I’m the only openly gay voice in that room.

LAWTON: The New Orleans meeting seemed to solidify the decisions of those already contemplating leaving the Episcopal Church. New Mexico Bishop Jeffrey Steenson announced he was resigning in order to become a Roman Catholic.

Bishop JEFFREY STEENSON (Diocese of the Rio Grande): There are a lot of doctrinal matters that are being debated in the Episcopal Church that just astonish me, and I felt that it was really important for me now to be clear with myself about where I could be comfortable.

LAWTON: Four of the 110 U.S. dioceses have begun steps to break with the Episcopal Church. Conservative American bishops, including some who left the Episcopal Church decades ago, met together in Pittsburgh this week to discuss ways they can work together. Many are aligning with Global South Anglican churches.

Bishop DUNCAN: From the beginning, the message to me and to other leaders from the archbishops around the world has been get it together, find a way to work together, agree on a leader, agree on the way you’re going to work together and declare it. Move forward and we’ll go forward with you.

LAWTON: Meanwhile, Episcopal Church leaders spent a day of their meeting doing service projects around the Gulf Coast. They said they wanted to put the controversies aside and focus more on ministry and mission. And on this point, the conservatives agreed.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton is in Pittsburgh where the conservatives were meeting. Kim, most of the Episcopal bishops took a position of this week that many of the conservatives didn’t like. Some of the conservatives are leaving the church, they say. What’s changed? What’s new?

LAWTON: Well, in fact no new policy was set at this meeting. The U.S. Episcopal bishops restated the situation that’s been in play in their church for the last couple of years. They may have said it a little more clearly, which is what I think a lot of people in the Anglican Communion were looking for, but they have not set any new policy. For the conservatives I think, though, this was a line in the sand. This was a moment they were looking for, and it seems like it’s a point of no return for them, and so it seems to have solidified a lot of the decisions that many people were considering anyway.

ABERNETHY: So what are the possibilities now?

LAWTON: Well, the conservatives that met here in Pittsburgh this week are trying to put together what they’re calling a federation of all of these groups that have left the Episcopal Church over the years. And they’re trying to see if they can put aside all their many differences and have a united alternative Anglican body here in the United States that might in some ways rival the U.S. Episcopal Church, that they can present to the worldwide Anglican Communion as here’s a viable form of Anglicanism in the United States. They have a plan of planting up to1000 churches over the next year, and they really want to move forward with that plan, and they’re getting support from many of these conservative archbishops in the Global South.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Another deadline looms for the U.S. Episcopal Church. Episcopal bishops are meeting in New Orleans until Tuesday (September 25), and a key item on their agenda is an ultimatum on gay issues from leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the 70-million-member Communion. The spiritual leader of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, joined the bishops for part of their meeting. Kim Lawton is in New Orleans and has our report.

KIM LAWTON: The Episcopal bishops and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams emerged from their closed door meetings Thursday (September 20) for a public ecumenical prayer service. Despite the deep divisions facing their church, there was a moment of unity as the bishops presented contributions of nearly $1 million to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Archbishop Williams saw the work of the Episcopal Church firsthand in New Orleans’ devastated Lower Ninth Ward.

(to Archbishop Rowan Williams): I’m just wondering what you thought about what you saw and heard here today?

Archbishop ROWAN WILLIAMS: It’s fantastic. It’s a real sign of commitment and hope, I think. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

LAWTON: But the main reason for the Archbishop’s visit was to discuss the issues that could tear the Anglican Communion apart. He spent a day and a half in frank conversations with the American bishops.

Archbishop WILLIAMS (during press conference): I think it would rather be an admission of defeat if we said that we were not capable of working together on the issues that divide us. Whether we’ll get to that point I don’t know.

LAWTON: This is a regularly scheduled business meeting for the bishops, but it comes on the eve of a crucial deadline, and what happens here could affect the Episcopal Church’s future status in the Anglican Communion. In February, the top leaders of the Communion’s regional churches gave U.S. Episcopalians until September 30th to clearly state that they will not consecrate any more gay bishops or authorize any more same-sex blessings. Failure to do so, the leaders said, would have unspecified consequences for the Episcopal Church’s place in the global church body. Some are speculating that the U.S. church could be asked to leave this historic branch of Christianity.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori isn’t expecting such radical responses.

Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (Presiding Bishop, U.S. Episcopal Church): We are eager to continue and grow our relationships around the Communion, and I think most people believe those relationships will not change significantly.

LAWTON: But relationships have been severely strained since 2003, when the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and paved the way for the blessing of same-sex unions. That set off a firestorm of controversy in the U.S. and within more conservative Anglican churches in Africa, Asia and South America — the so-called Global South.

Bishop JOHN GUERNSEY (Anglican Church of Uganda): When the church really, in our view, departed from biblical authority and the historic teaching of the church it was no longer a matter of simply staying together as if nothing had happened.

LAWTON: John Guernsey is rector of All Saints Church in Woodbridge, Virginia, and he’s also a new bishop for the Anglican Church of Uganda. Guernsey’s parishioners decided to leave the Episcopal Church last year, but they still wanted to be part of the Anglican Communion. So they put themselves under the authority of the Church of Uganda, which shares their traditional views.

Earlier this month in Uganda, Guernsey was consecrated as an Anglican bishop. But he’ll be working in the U.S., overseeing 33 congregations that have affiliated with the Church of Uganda. None of the congregations is ethnically Ugandan.

In August, two American priests were also made bishops for the Anglican Church of Kenya. Still others are now bishops for the Church of Nigeria, all overseeing congregations in the U.S. It’s a point of deep contention across the Communion. At the Tanzania meeting, the Anglican leaders urged overseas bishops to stop intervening in U.S. dioceses.

But Guernsey says the Global South wanted to find a way to support disaffected American conservatives.

Bishop GUERNSEY: The Global South has felt that they were not going to abandon those who have taken a faithful stand here in the U.S.

LAWTON: Episcopal leaders accuse the Global South churches of wrongful meddling.

Bishop JOHN CHANE (Diocese of Washington, D.C.): They need to understand how painful that is in the life of my province, my church, the Episcopal Church, and how much it undermines the very concept of what it means to be an Anglican or to be a part of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: We elect our own bishops, we do not appoint them, and that they are elected and consecrated for work in a particular diocese by the members of that diocese.

LAWTON: One overarching concern is church authority. Each of the 38 regional Anglican bodies is self-governing. Neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor any other Anglican leader is supposed to tell another province what to do.

Bishop CHANE: For me, as one bishop, the issue is who’s going to control the Communion, who’s in charge, who has the power, which is an unusual place to be in, given the loose confederation of churches and provinces that make up the Anglican Communion.

LAWTON: Decisions for the Episcopal Church are made by a convention of clergy and lay delegates that meets every three years. Episcopal bishops say they don’t have the authority to respond to the demands made in the Tanzania ultimatum. The last General Convention in 2006 passed a nonbinding resolution calling on Episcopalians to “exercise restraint by not consecrating” future gay bishops for a time. But that wasn’t strong enough for many conservatives in the U.S. and around the world. And, indeed, Tracey Lind, an openly lesbian priest, is one of five candidates on the ballot to become the next bishop of Chicago.

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: The Diocese of Chicago has every right to nominate anyone who is qualified in the church, and we do understand that gay and lesbian priests in relationships are qualified at this point.

LAWTON: Individuals, and some entire congregations, have been leaving the Episcopal Church, but exact numbers are hard to pin down. Conservatives represent a minority in the U.S. but a majority around the world. Some of the departing congregations are in the middle of contentious lawsuits over whether they can keep their church buildings. The Episcopal Church says the property belongs to the diocese, not the parishioners. Many churches find themselves caught in the middle — unwilling to leave the Episcopal Church, but frustrated by the lack of a satisfactory resolution.

Bishop CHARLES JENKINS (Diocese of Louisiana): I’m tired of the disagreements. I would like to have the disagreements settled. What I’m not willing to do is to settle the disagreements at the price of the mission of the church. I hope that we will find the space, the time, and the freedom to search for more long-lasting and I think creative solutions than we’re able to do in the anxious system in which we live in now.

LAWTON: The Presiding Bishop says she’s optimistic that progress will come out of this New Orleans meeting.

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: Greater understanding, both within this church and across the Communion. A greater sense that we are one in our diversity and that we can continue to be one.

LAWTON: Others aren’t so sure.

Bishop GUERNSEY: If what’s being sought is some kind of artificial fabricated institutional unity to paper over foundational differences over who Jesus is and what he has done and what his work on the cross means for us, then I don’t think there’s any future in that.

LAWTON: After the meeting here in New Orleans, conservative bishops will hold their own meeting to craft their response. I’m Kim Lawton in New Orleans.