Dear Christine,
Are homosexuals always atheist?
Curious in Clawson
Dear Curious, Gays and lesbians are just like everyone else in the world when it comes to religion and faith. Some faiths are not welcoming to GLBTs, so some have stayed within their religion to fight for acceptance from the inside. Others have left their religion entirely and are atheist or agnostic. Still others have rallied together and formed entirely new religious groups to minister to GLBTs in a place and way in which they are spiritually, emotionally and physically safe. A good example of this is the Metropolitan Community Church denomination. It is a Christian denomination that was founded in 1968 by Troy Perry for GLBTs who were excluded from mainline Christian Churches. Check out www.mccchurch.org. Many mainline protestant churches now have GLBT groups or are GLBT friendly, and some have approved ordination of GLBT people to the ministry. The United Church of Crist, UCC, opened ordination to GLBT people in 1972, and more recently, including the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Presbyterian Church (USA). The Roman Catholics have a GLBT group called Dignity Detroit, www.dignitydetroit.orgin this area, which celebrates mass monthly. Recently, Pope Francis has made refreshing comments about how he is not to judge about someone being GLBT and Christian and he wants the Roman Catholic Church to stop focusing so much on anti–gay and anti–abortion issues.
There are also welcoming congregations of Reconstructionist Judaism and Reform Judaism. Orthodox and Conservative Judaism. By the way, there is an interesting film that I saw at the DIA Friday Film series several years ago called “Trembling Before God” about Orthodox Jewish gay men and lesbians who wanted to remain Orthodox.
Just as there are all kinds of heterosexuals and not all of them are atheist and not all are believers, all people are everything. Some gays and lesbians do feel that they were driven from their religion (Christians, Mormons, Muslims) to atheism and agnosticism, there are plenty more who took their faith and created a welcoming community for GLBT within their faith. Sometimes that’s been a new faith (taking on a Spirit Guide from Native American Spirituality, or Buddhism or Paganism) and sometimes that’s reclaiming the faith of their upbringing. Thanks for writing. Christine Cantrell