Integration of one's religion and homosexuality: a weapon against internalized homophobia?

Abstract

Internalized homophobia as a psychological phenomenon has attracted little systematic research despite its destructive impact on the mental health of the gay community. This study looks at the relationship between internalized homophobia and the process of integrating one's religious faith and homosexuality by comparing levels of internalized homophobia among male participants of Dignity, an organization of Catholic gay men and lesbians, with a community sample of gay men with Catholic backgrounds. While many gay men believe they must abandon their religious faith (nearly 50% of this community sample no longer endorse a "formal religion") in order to accept their sexuality, Dignity members are actively integrating their religion and homosexuality--a process which we hypothesized would result in the Dignity participants being less homophobic than the community sample. While results showed no significant differences between the groups with regard to level of internalized homophobia, there are suggestions that involvement in Dignity does foster positive attitudes towards one's homosexuality by helping to overcome a delay in the development of a gay orientation. We also examined how other variables such as HIV status, psychological distress, conservative versus liberal ideology, and integration into the gay community would be associated with internalized homophobia.