"Gay people need to take back the religious and moral high ground," say the only openly gay Episcopal Bishop, Gene Robinson, at at recent conference called to discuss religious and gay issues. Also, participating was the Rev. Rebbecca Voekel, Director of the Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Studying the anti-gay marriage proposition that passed in Michigan and the another report analyzing the Porp 8 campaign in California showed that the two reports came to the same conclusion: It is very important for the gay marriage movement to break the monopoly that the religious right has on religious and moral arguments around marriage.

In the past, the battle has gone like this: The anti-gay right uses Biblical and religious language, plus the infrastructure of religious institutions, to make the case that equal marriage invalidates the sacredness of limited straight marriage.

Gay activists, on the other hand, have a secular message of civil and human rights, focusing on the benefits gays and lesbians get from marriage. We reach out to religious groups, sure, but only once the battle lines have been drawn, and then haphazardly.

This is why we lose, when we do.

The solution?

• First, that we acknowledge that religious opposition requires a religious response. Those on the call said that it is very important that we call on GLBT's who are religious to speak up both in their faith communities and in their queer communities in order to help find common ground.
• We must cultivate and support progressive religious leaders who speak out in the media and in the pulpit on our issues. We must show the media and the public that the Religious Right does not speak for all people of faith, or even all Christians.
• We must emphasize to legislators and the public that religious marriage and civil marriage are two different states that share the same noun. We must say, as Robinson does, that forbidding gay marriage is a case where religions are infringing on a state's right to marry those they deem fit.
• We must build "strong and authentic alliances" with religious leaders and convince them that gay rights is a matter of justice.
• we must not write off any religious group as unmovable - all denominations and religions have moderate voices.

Voekel said that there are 5 million members of Welcoming Congregations+ across the nation - congregations that have voted to affirm that they are open to GLBTs. Younger evangelicals are twice as likely as evangelicals over all to support gay marriage, said Winne Stachelberg, vice president for external affairs for the Center for American Progress. 60 percent of Catholics under 30 support gay marriage. 2/3 of mainline Protestant clergy support gay relationships.

New Hampshire showed us the way to a new strategy: confirm religious liberties in the same law that passes equal marriage. Robinson said that "this is a new dimension to the discussion and a very effective one." He said that the religious liberties confirmed in the NH marriage law are redundant ones, already part of state law. But if re-affirming them is what leads to gay marriage passing, then so be it.

Robinson said, "We need to change the attitudes of religious people and clergy toward LGBT's, but that's a fight for another day. That's a conversation that needs to take place in the denominations. We're here to change the civil law."

+(For more information on Wecoming Congregations, Click Here, or Here.)