Religion and gay rights

Religion and Faith

Nearly half of LGBTQ Americans are religious, and a majority of all people of faith, LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ, back protections against discrimination for LGBTQ people. Myths that all people of faith oppose LGBTQ people and equality are fueled by vitriolic opposition to LGBTQ people and families by anti-LGBTQ activists who claim to speak for all Christians or other religious groups. The rhetoric of these anti-LGBTQ activists frequently leads to media coverage that falsely positions LGBTQ equality as &#;God vs. gay.&#; Despite increasing religious acceptance of LGBTQ people, voices of those who oppose LGBTQ equality are disproportionately represented in media coverage: a GLAAD study set up three out of four religious leaders interviewed by the media on LGBTQ issues come from traditions that have policies or traditions that oppose LGBTQ equality. In , a Center for American Progress (CAP) study of media coverage of LGBTQ issues found that while % of the religiously-identified sources in these articles expressed negative or anti-LGBTQ sentiment, public opinion polling

What Does the Bible Tell About Homosexuality?

What Does The Bible Say About Homosexuality?

Introduction

For the last two decades, Pew Research Center has reported that one of the most enduring ethical issues across Christian traditions is sexual diversity. For many Christians, one of the most frequently first-asked questions on this topic is, “What does the Bible say about attraction to someone of the same sex?”

Although its unlikely that the biblical authors had any notion of sexual orientation (for example, the term homosexual wasn't even coined until the late 19th century) for many people of faith, the Bible is looked to for timeless guidance on what it means to honor God with our lives; and this most certainly includes our sexuality.

Before we can jump into how it is that Christians can maintain the authority of the Bible and also affirm sexual diversity, it might be helpful if we started with a brief but clear overview of some of the assumptions informing many Christian approaches to understanding the Bible.

What is the Bible?

For Christians to whom the Bible

Responding to Faith-based LGBTphobia

We should not have to justify our identities to anyone, but there will be some people who we may want to talk about our identities with, and for them to hear and try and understand our experiences.

We’ve collected responses to some of the most common challenges that people face being an LGBT+ person with a religion, faith or belief, and how you could respond if needed.

In our scripture it says that homosexuality is a sin/forbidden.

  • Where exactly in the scripture does it say that?
  • Do you know which interpretation of the scripture you are reading? Did the original text use these words and actually mean this?
  • What about the other things that scriptures mentions are forbidden but which people ignore? Why is the focus on singling out LGBT+ identities for criticism?

God created man and woman to be together. Not man and man or noun and woman. It’s not natural.

  • If everyone is created by God, then LGBT+ people were also created by God.
  • My experiences, my thoughts and who I am all feels completely natural to me.

    Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion

    Abstract

    My goal in this piece is to surface some of the commonalities between religious belief liberty and sexual orientation identity liberty and to propose some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. I first wish to make transparent the struggle that I believe exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ("LGBT") people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. I consider those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of such laws on some people's religious beliefs and, equally, I believe those who contain sought religious exemptions from such civil rights laws have downplayed the impact that such exemptions would have on LGBT people. Second, I want to propose that the best framework for dealing with the conflict between some people's religious beliefs and LGBT people's identity liberty is to analyze religious people's claims as belief