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An investigation of religion and spirituality of sexual minorities in the United States: Exploring perceptions, intrinsic religiosity, and outness to religious communities

Puckett JA, Wolff JR, Gunn HA, Woodward EN. An investigation of religion and spirituality of sexual minorities in the United States: Exploring perceptions, intrinsic religiosity, and outness to religious communities. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. 2018 Jul 1; 28(3):145-161.

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Abstract:

We investigated how sexual minority participants in the United States (N = 217; M age = 36.36 years) viewed organized religion and their relationships with a higher power. In addition, we examined the associations between levels of outness in religious communities, internalized heterosexism (IH), intrinsic religiosity, and depression. Open-ended responses revealed that views of organized religion fell into three categories-negative (57.9%), positive (9.1%), and ambivalent (33%)-and participants reported a variety of relationships to a higher power-existing relationship (61.5%), no relationship (19%), fractured relationship (4.6%), and some who felt unsure (10.8%). Participants with greater outness to a religious community reported less IH and higher intrinsic religiosity. Also, outness to a religious community moderated the association between IH and depression, such that there was not a significant association between IH and depression for individuals with low levels of outness. However, at average to high levels of outness, there was a significant association between IH and depression.




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