Would Jesus OK same-sex marriage?
  * Jay Parini: Some religions comfortable with same-sex marriage; others still struggle
(CNN) -- Same-sex marriage has risen into the headlines again, as the U.S. Supreme Court mulls over whether or not it should weigh in on its constitutionality. But even Sen. Rand Paul, a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has suggested that it should not be a matter of federal concern. "It is a local issue and always has been," he told an interviewer in South Carolina this past week. The tide on this issue seems, quite rapidly, to have shifted.
Even Christians -- who once stood uniformly against same-sex marriage -- have become more comfortable with the idea, and, one by one, mainstream churches have begun to reconsider it. One thinks back to those five little words Pope Francis uttered in 2013, spoken casually on a plane flight one evening when reporters asked about his attitude toward gays: "Who am I to judge?"
Change has been coming quickly, in fact. Only last June, one saw the powerful Presbyterian Church officially change its position on same-sex marriage. By a vote of 429-174, the elders of the church allowed clergy to marry gay couples in states where that is permissible by law. This vote cleared the way for same-sex marriages in some 10,000 churches in the United States.
He has, for some time, approved of civil ceremonies for gay people, although he maintains that each church has the right to make its own decision on same-sex marriage. "I'm a Baptist," he said, "and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs."