NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Southern Baptist Convention leaders are aggressively pursuing their fight against the “homosexual agenda” on several fronts.

Richard Land, who heads the convention’s ethics and religious liberties commission, said a formal “declaration on marriage” will be issued later this month at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.

“We want to make sure there is no confusion about what the Bible says on this issue,” he said.

The convention already has a position statement that says homosexuality is a sin. But convention leaders are concerned about efforts to legalize gay marriage, a recent Texas court decision that essentially legalized sodomy, and the ordination of a gay Episcopalian bishop.

The Southern Baptist Convention and other conservative groups are trying to make gay marriage a top issue in next year’s elections. They support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“We hope to make every candidate in this 2004 election cycle — be he or she a candidate for president, Senate, Congress, governor or state legislature — answer the question, ‘Are you for or against the federal marriage amendment?’ And then we will make sure everyone we influence knows how the candidate answered it,” Land said.

Land said the convention is engaged in a “cultural war and a spiritual war.”

“The homosexual activists are out to normalize and affirm their lifestyle and to marginalize those of us who believe it’s unnatural and unholy,” he said. “When we get attacked, we fight back. They want a war for the high ground of this culture, they got it, and we intend to win it.”

As part of the effort to recruit “ordinary soldiers” to the “spiritual battleground,” the leader of the convention’s publishing house and bookstore chain has offered discounts to employees who buy copies of “The Homosexual Agenda.”

In a memo last month, James T. Draper encouraged employees of Lifeway Christian Resources to give copies to their pastors, Christian teachers in their children’s schools and “anyone who has acquiesced because they think ‘there’s nothing we can do about it.’”

In a follow-up memo, Draper said he was pleased with the response. “You obviously understand the gravity of the situation we face in America and the threat that the homosexual agenda is to our religious freedom and God’s design for marriage and family,” he said.

Robert Parham, executive director of the Center for Baptist Ethics, which is affiliated with the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said the Southern Baptist Convention had appeared earlier this year to be “shifting toward a less hateful tone about homosexuality, but now it appears the convention has taken a U-turn.”

Mark Shields, a spokesman for the Washington-based gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said the convention’s actions are a “blatant attack and assault” on thousands of gay couples.

“We’re all taught that a basic part of the American dream is to grow up, fall in love, partner with someone and live out our lives. That dream is no different for gay Americans,” he said.

James Byrd, assistant dean of the divinity school at Vanderbilt University, noted that the Southern Baptist Convention leaders aren’t saying anything new, but they’re actively pushing their message at a time when they’ve got the upper edge politically — with Republicans in the White House and controlling Congress.

“They have a favorable political climate and want to maintain it,” Byrd said.