RELIGION IN MICH. AMENDMENT DEBATE: From the Detroit Free Press

Divisions over homosexuality that have wracked American religious groups for decades are spilling into voting booths this year.

Denominations are at odds with each other and religious leaders are sparring in the public square. Even their millions of members across Michigan are splitting into camps; a Free Press poll in September shows that this division cuts most deeply between those who regularly attend services and those who don't.

On one side is the Presbytery of Detroit, the state's Episcopal bishops and influential rabbis and other clerics who have lined up against Proposal 2, which would constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in Michigan. On the other side is the combined financial and numerical power of an array of black and white Protestant churches, plus Michigan's seven Catholic dioceses.

In fact, Michigan's Catholic leaders are far more politically active this year than their Catholic colleagues in other states with similar ballot issues. Michigan's bishops have donated $505,000 to the group backing Proposal 2, recently suggested that priests do sermons on the issue and mailed literature to 600,000 Catholic households.

The political battle has forged unlikely partnerships. Bishop Keith Butler, head of the Word of Faith Christian Center in Southfield and a nationally known Republican activist, is working with Rev. Edgar Vann Jr. of Second Ebenezer Baptist Church in Detroit and Bishop Charles Ellis of Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, both prominent pastors traditionally associated with Democratic causes. ...

In the other states with similar measures, Catholic leadership generally issued pronouncements against same-sex marriage in diocesan newspapers and parish bulletins.

Even in Ohio, a state demographically similar to Michigan, Catholic dioceses have not contributed financially to a statewide initiative as they have here. And, surprisingly in Utah, Salt Lake City Bishop George Niederauer has taken a position against the amendment. He believes its wording could endanger other rights, said spokeswoman Dee Rowland.

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