In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, researcher R.G. Cravens saw a headline about the importance of LGBTQ+ voters. How would results have changed, he wondered, if LGBTQ+ religious people stayed home on Election Day? But when he went to review exit polling, he found his question was unanswerable: The survey was done in waves, and questions about religious affiliation and LGBTQ+ identity were never asked together. According to Cravens who is now a senior research analyst at Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), that lack of data isn’t unusual. High-quality quantitative studies about religious LGBTQ+ people are few and far between; most of the research that does exist has been released in the past decade. It’s estimated that 7 percent of American adults identify as LGBTQ+ and roughly half consider themselves a person of faith. That means an estimated 12 million LGBTQ+ Americans are persons of faith. Researchers studying religious LGBTQ+ people run into issues common to working with small populations like facing difficulty getting a large enough sample for meaningful analysis and the fact that the work is resource-intensive. But bias also plays a role, as many people incorrectly believe religion and queer people to be incompatible. That idea has a political purpose: As religious right-wing ideologies gain popularity among people in power, it is easier to justify the systematic denial of LGBTQ+ rights when they are portrayed as a community clearly delineated from the faithful.
Home Happening Out Television Network Many LGBTQ+ People Are Religious So Why Don’t We Have More Statistics...