ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Thousands of Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to advance a formal ban on women pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sending a clear message that men alone should preach to these conservative evangelical congregations.

The amendment would tighten existing restrictions in the Southern Baptist Convention, which already has a faith statement opposing women pastors.

The vote was 6,028 to 2,026 — a 3-to-1 margin — which easily exceeded the required two-thirds majority. It will require a similar two-thirds vote at next year’s meeting to become part of the constitution.

The two-day meeting concluded Wednesday after bringing more than 11,000 delegates, or messengers, to a cavernous convention center in Orlando, Florida.

Typical of the SBC’s annual meetings, the gathering carries the feel of a town hall with a cast of thousands. It mixes worship and sermons with numerous motions and resolutions governed by parliamentary procedure, where the sacred and the arcane are debated with equal fervor. A debate Wednesday over the location of a future SBC annual meeting took longer than the debate over women pastors.

Albert Mohler, who sponsored the amendment on women pastors, said it addressed a defining issue.

“This is an opportunity for Southern Baptists to speak in truth, in unity, in conviction,” said Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

“There’s a great line that divides liberal and biblical evangelicalism, and you can see it on this very issue,” he said. “The trajectory of liberal denominations is clear.”

There was only brief debate — and none of it contained support for women pastors.

The sole opposition came from South Carolina pastor Doug Mize. He said the measure wasn’t necessary because the denomination already has a mechanism to expel churches with women in senior pastoral positions, and it’s done so multiple times.