Compromising Complex Identities: Understanding the Negotiation between Religious and Homosexual Identity on a Catholic Campus

• In Event: 430 - Regular Session. Religion and Intersecting Identities

Abstract

This paper provides an in-depth, qualitative analysis of homosexual and religious identity negotiation at both a Catholic university and a public university. Personal interviews were conducted with participating gay college students at a public and a Catholic Midwestern university to gather information about perceptions of safety and inclusion on the two campuses and about how students negotiate both a religious and homosexual identity. Interviewees were asked to evaluate their experiences on campus as well as to summarize their personal experiences with the intersection of homosexuality and religion.
This study investigates the details of how the negotiation between religion and homosexuality works at a Catholic university and why negotiations of religion and homosexuality look different at Catholic universities and state universities. Analysis indicates four major ways that students negotiate these identities which were related to family experiences, past emotional trauma, experiences of exclusion, religious shame, bonds and boundaries of gay student subculture in two different contexts, etc. Results explore the unique contextual ties that seem to make the negotiation process harder for students at Catholic universities. Implications of these findings are that, for Catholic college students, the religious intricacies of their lives and universities deeply affect and sometimes mire their interactions with their peers, their university, and their understanding of self.

Authors

• Robert Lysle Wedow, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Mary Ellen Konieczny, University of Notre Dame