Gays Point of View

The gay community is not completely opposed to religion. In fact, you can find several of them fighting for recognition in church-owned private schools. Most private religious schools do not recognize any gay group because they see same-sex relationships as a sin.

However, the exclusion of gays from many religious private schools and religious activity altogether does not stop students of sexual minorities from fighting for recognition. There have been many schools that have reluctantly decided to recognize the gay community on their campus. This is surprising considering that there is a still a significant number of schools that will recommend the student go to counseling in order to fight his or her same-sex attraction.

There are also gays out there that have spoken about their previous experience with religion, and may be opposed to religion simply because of what they claim they went through. For example, there is an article on ABC News called "Mormon 'Gay Cure' Used Electric Shocks Against Homosexual Feelings."

After this reading, I was beginning to wonder if this man actually received this treatment or simply wanted to get some attention. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I know what the church believes and teaches. The article claims that the LDS church preaches that "homosexuality is second only to murder."I was taught that fornication was second only to murder, not "homosexuality" as the article claims. It does not matter if you are heterosexual or gay, any sexual relationship, which is performed outside the bonds of matrimony is considered to be fornication, and therefore, a sin in the LDS religion.

Another interesting thing I found was that the article claims they used electrical shocks to the penis, which is also out of harmony with the church's teachings. That part of one's body by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is considered to be somewhat sacred and not to be played with.

The article goes on to say that the subjects were shown nude images of both men and women, which is also something the church would not do. The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints is one of the strongest anti-pornography advocates, and pornography is what this study was using. The church's position against pornography has been the same thought its lifetime, but is talked about more as it has become more available in society.


So in short, I think that the article may be slanted against the church in someway mainly because they do not allow gay marriages within the church. This is a good example of the myths that can be found within the media on any topic, religion and gay marriage alike. However, I do think that it does make a good point because, tolerance in general among Utah Mormon's is lacking.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find too much information about gays point of view in other religions. However, I did find a New York Times article that gives a point of view of a gay Muslim.

He is not opposed to his religion. He will defend it if anyone decides to attack the Muslim beliefs, and still considers himself a Muslim. Even so, others have withdrawn from the faith because, they believe that it is rare to be able to be religious and gay.