People feel very strongly about this.

Leaders of the United Methodist Church, the second-largest Protestant domination in the nation, announced Friday a plan that would formally split the church after years of division over same-sex marriage.

Under the plan, which would sunder a denomination with 13 million members worldwide, a new “traditionalist Methodist” denomination would be created and would continue to ban same-sex marriage as well as the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy.

A separation in the Methodist church had been anticipated since a contentious general conference in St. Louis last February, when 53% of church leaders and lay members voted to tighten the ban on same-sex marriage, declaring that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”