Abstract

Research shows that sexual minorities have been criticized and rejected by nearly every major religious group in the United States. The cumulative alienation that sexual minorities experience from mainline religious groups may leave them feeling disillusioned and even hostile toward religious organizations which have historically rejected them. However, research to date has not explored sexual minorities' perceptions of religious collectives in the United States. The current study examines the variations between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals regarding their religious beliefs and perceptions of religious collectives' attitudes toward the LGB and transgender (LGBT) population. Utilizing data from the 2013 Pew Research Center of LGBT adults, I conduct four separate binary logistic regression analyses examining evangelical Protestant churches', the Catholic Church's, the Jewish religion's, and mainline Protestant churches' acceptance of the LGBT population. The findings from this study offer rare insight from the perspectives of LGB individuals regarding four major religious collectives and illustrates that sexual minorities do indeed have a complex relationship with religious groups. Ultimately, the findings from this research demonstrate the importance of further examining sexual minorities' attitudes and interactions with religious collectives.

Notes

If this is your thesis or dissertation, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Graduation Date

2017

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Gay, David

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Sociology

Degree Program

Sociology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0006718

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0006718

Language

English

Release Date

August 2017

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Download

Included in

Sociology Commons

Share

COinS