"Culture has moved so that no longer is the mainline [church] the moral voice for America the way it might have been perceived in the '40s, '50s and '60s," said Scott L. Thumma, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary.

"The mainline isn't the public player that it once was."

The mainline churches, Protestant denominations so named for their moderate theologies that balance societal changes with the Christian faith's historical roots, are reeling on several fronts.

Supported by Anglican primates (provincial leaders) and the Anglican Consultative Council, TWR had asked TEC "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same-gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges." And, it "invited" TEC "to express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration [of Robinson]

The message noted that the current attack on human dignity is worse than in the past, pointing specifically to manipulations of the human embryo and acceptance of disordered sexuality. "Today, perhaps more persuasively and with more effective means than in the past, human dignity is threatened by aberrant ideologies, assailed by the misguided use of science and technology, and contradicted by widespread incongruent lifestyles.

Let's examine the words of just one of those often incorrectly cited as providing evidence for a "gay gene." Simon LeVay notes, "It is important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men were born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work."