Literature has consistently documented that religious involvement and identity
have a positive, protective impact on health. Gay and lesbian persons, as members of a
stigmatized group, are at particular risk for numerous physical and psychological
difficulties and may benefit from competent care by clergy. The purpose of this
dissertation is to report the results of a survey of 1,000 Protestant clergy in the United
States designed to describe clergy’s training, knowledge, and experience regarding
homosexuality and to examine the predictors of clergy’s attitudes toward issues of
homosexuality.
Evidence indicates that training and contact with homosexual persons can
transmit knowledge to clergy, and that such knowledge is associated with more positive
attitudes toward gays and lesbians. However, in this sample, males and respondents
reporting more conservative religious beliefs scored lower on the knowledge scale than
their more liberal counterparts. Additionally, respondents’ formal training about homosexuality overall appears to have been insufficient to meet their professional needs
as more information was received through informal training and continuing education.
Conservative respondents reported less personal and professional experience
with homosexuals and issues of homosexuality. Similarly, conservative respondents,
males, persons from the Midwest and South, persons who did not receive clinical
pastoral education (CPE) training, and those with less personal experience with
homosexual persons reported significantly more conservative attitudes. The one
exception to these findings was with conservatives reporting significantly more
professional experience providing pastoral care to a homosexual who wanted to become
heterosexual. This finding is congruous with conservatives scoring incorrectly more
often on knowledge items regarding the changeability/choice of homosexuality.
While knowledge was a consistent and significant predictor of attitudes (less
knowledge predicted more conservative attitudes/beliefs), religious beliefs provided a
stronger contribution to regression models with conservative beliefs significantly
predicting more negative attitudes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1129 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Cheatham, Carla Ann |
| Contributors | Goodson, Pat |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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