The fight to allow same-sex marriage and gay clergy has defined much of the last half-century for major mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S.

The United Methodist Church, which stripped out its bans and related social teachings over the past two weeks, is the last of the major mainline church bodies to go through this process.

When the United Methodist Church removed anti-gay language from its official rules last week, it marked the end of a half-century of debates over LGBTQ inclusion in America's mainline Protestant denom