Niraj Warikoo

Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — At their gathering in Detroit, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States voted to allow their clergy to perform same-sex marriages.

Members of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), an influential mainline Protestant group, voted at Cobo Center for the first time to allow ministers to perform them.

The Presbyterians are now one of the biggest Christian groups in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriages.

According to Religion News Service, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church voted to allow pastors to perform gay marriages wherever they are legal by a vote of 76% to 24%.

In two overwhelming votes, the nation's sixth-largest Protestant denomination approved the practice in the 19 states where same-sex marriage is legal and approved presbytery-by-presbytery decisions to change the definition of marriage from a man and a woman to two people.

The amendment requires approval from a majority of the 172 regional presbyteries, which will vote on the change over the next year.

In 2011, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved ordaining clergy with same-sex partners. Since then, 428 of the denomination's more than 10,000 churches have left for other more conservative denominations or have dissolved. The church now has about 1.8 million members.

Given that Presbyterians are historically an influential denomination, the vote could persuade other Christian groups to follow, say experts.

Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light Presbyterians, a gay advocacy group, said the decisions Thursday were "an answer to many prayers" of same-sex couples.

"We will keep praying that the majority of our 172 presbyteries will confirm that all loving couples can turn to their churches when they are ready to be married," McNeill said.

The conservative Presbyterian Lay Committee decried the votes in Detroit as an "abomination."

"The General Assembly has committed an express repudiation of the Bible, the mutually agreed upon Confessions of the PCUSA, thousands of years of faithfulness to God's clear commands and the denominational ordination vows of each concurring commissioner," the committee said in a statement.

Of the mainline Protestant denominations, only the United Church of Christ supports gay marriage outright. The Episcopal Church has approved a prayer service for blessing same-sex unions. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has eliminated barriers for gay clergy but allows regional and local church officials to decide their own policies on ordination.

The largest mainline group, the United Methodist Church, with about 7.8 million U.S. members, bars ordaining people in same-sex relationships. However, church members have been debating whether to split over their different views of the Bible and marriage, because gay marriage supporters have been recruiting clergy to openly officiate at same-sex ceremonies in protest of church policy.

The votes come during a week when a number of religious groups filed legal briefs in a federal court in Ohio in support of the right of same-sex couples to marry, in a case involving an Oakland County, Mich., lesbian couple.

Two briefs were filed in support Monday in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that represented dozens of faith-based organizations and clergy. One of them was filed by the Jewish group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on behalf of Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Japanese-American and other groups who back the right to gay marriage.

The other brief was led by Michigan's four Episcopal bishops on behalf of liberal Mormon, Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, and Jewish groups.

Contributing: The Associated Press