DETROIT — At their gathering in Detroit, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States voted to allow their clergy to perform same-sex marriages.

Members of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), an influential mainline Protestant group, voted at Cobo Center for the first time to allow ministers to perform them.

The Presbyterians are now one of the biggest Christian groups in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriages.

According to Religion News Service, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church voted to allow pastors to perform gay marriages wherever they are legal by a vote of 76% to 24%.

In two overwhelming votes, the nation's sixth-largest Protestant denomination approved the practice in the 19 states where same-sex marriage is legal and approved presbytery-by-presbytery decisions to change the definition of marriage from a man and a woman to two people.