“Fag Church”

Abstract

It is usually assumed that being gay or lesbian and being Christian is contradictory. The eight men who participated in this qualitative inquiry demonstrate otherwise. I investigated the ways in which these men integrated their gay and Christian identities meaningfully into their lives. From the interview data, I discerned and describe in this paper a variety of strategies that these men adopted in order to facilitate identity integration of seemingly mutually exclusive identities. In the bid for social and political equality with heterosexuals, gays and lesbians typically have not received support from Christians, at least not from politically active Christians, many of whom participate in explicitly anti-gay campaigns. Given such a contentious context, I discuss the personal and political implications of integrating gay and evangelical Christian identities.