This article explor how relign and relig stutns affect the liv of lbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people livg Sat Lucia. Drawg on
Contents:
SECTN 2: KNOWG GAYS AND LBIANS, RELIG CONFLICTS, BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY
NPR's Ari Shapiro talks wh Currey Cook of Lambda Legal, the gay rights group that wrote a iend-of-the-urt brief the LGBTQ rights se which the Supreme Court sid wh relig eedom. * lgbt community and religion *
However, non-affirmg relig beliefs about same-sex attractn or genr inty (and siarly non-LGBT iendly ngregatns) n actually exacerbate mory strs, specifilly ternalized homophobia, which self is associated wh creased suicidal thoughts. Acrdg to a 2019 Pew Rearch Center analysis, 26 percent of Amerins intify as agnostic, atheist or “nothg particular, ” up om 17 percent jt a Sharon Klebm, of Congregatn Be Simchat Torah, New York’s LGBTQ synagogue, said the barriers gay people face when participatg their fah have only started to fall.
“There’s been progrs, but I al wh people all the time om liberal relig fai who have faced horrible bigotry and rejectn, ” she, she add, the hunger for spirualy is ep among gay people — perhaps even eper than among the larger populatn. 5 percent intify as Jewish and 2 percent as the percentage of gay Amerins who intify as part of any fah tradn is still nsirably lower than the general populatn, of which 67 percent is relig, acrdg to a 2017 Gallup LGBTQ Black Amerins, the most likely mographic to be relig (over 70 percent), still lag behd Black people the general populatn: More than 82 percent are relig.
For while most LGBTQ Amerins have been raised an anized relign — and many ntue to cherish their fah muny — too many have been forced to leave those muni behd bee of nmnatn of lbian, gay and bisexual people. "It's only been a ltle over a that our own movement has e to unrstand homosexualy and genr inty different ways, " says Rabbi Jab Blumenthal, CEO of the Rabbil Assembly, an ternatnal associatn of rabbis the Conservative tradn.