Patterns of Discrimination against Same-sex Couples in U.S. Churches

• In Event: 1580 - Section on Sociology of Religion Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Religious Leaders and Shifting Religious Landscapes

Abstract

Historically, Christianity in the U.S. has perpetuated and reinforced discriminatory attitudes toward LGBTQ-identified people (O’Brien 2004; Whitehead 2013), with most mainline and evangelical denominations asserting that homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity (Cadge 2002). Extensive research has explored the development of and debate around such denominational statements (Cadge, Olson, and Wildeman 2008), as well as the work that clergy and local congregations do in deciding if their church will fully affirm gay men and lesbian women as members (Cadge and Wildeman 2008; Djupe and Olson 2013; Olson and Cadge 2002), but we do not know how pastors, acting as gatekeepers for their religious communities, may or may not discriminate against potential new members who identify as gay or lesbian. This paper, part of a larger dissertation project, thus addresses the question: do pastors in the U.S. discriminate against gay and lesbian couples?
I have designed a correspondence audit study in which I will analyze responses to 3,000 emails I send, divided across three evangelical denominations, three mainline denominations, and the Catholic Church, to a nationally representative sample of churches. Each church will receive a single email from a randomly assigned couple: a lesbian couple, a gay couple, a straight couple where the man composes the email, and a straight couple where the woman writes. I indicate sexual orientation by having each email mention a spouse and then close with a clearly gendered name. Using logistic and OLS regression models, I will use four outcome variables to analyze responses to emails and to consider how gender and religious tradition may shape pastors’ treatment of couples. This research provides a much-needed analysis of pastors’ treatment of gay and lesbian couples, offering us critical insights into how Christian religious traditions in the U.S. may be continuing to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Author

• Laura Krull, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill