Religion attitudes toward same-sex marriage among U.S. Latinos
Christopher Ellison, Gabriel Acevedo and Aida Ramos-Wada
The majority of the Latinx community identifies as Catholic, however over the recent years Latinx population has turned to the Protestant religion. Both religions equally fail to accept same sex marriages in their institutions. In "Religion and Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage Among U.S. Latinos," Christopher Ellison, Gabriel Acevedo and Aida Ramos-Wada describe the relationship between sexuality and religion in the Latino community. The issue of same-sex marriages in the Catholic church as well as the Protestant religion are brought to light. Because of the biblical literature as well as political outlooks, most conservative religions tend to be less accepting of individuals who identify as LGBTQ. Not all Latinos who identify as Catholic oppose same-sex marriage, making us ask: “are they disaffected due to church teachings on social issues, do they engage in popular spirituality rather than formal organization, or do they maintain Catholic identity mainly as an expression or extension of their Latino ethnicity?” (Ellison, Acevedo & Ramos, p. 53).
Catholicism is not only a religion one may identify with, but many Latino groups, such as Puerto Ricans, Mexican American and so forth, tend to use Catholicism as an ethnic identity. There is more to just the religion that can affect the political thinking of an individual who identifies as Catholic as education is also a strong predictor for “social policy liberalism”.
Christopher Ellison, Gabriel Acevedo and Aida Ramos-Wada show that there are two groups of Catholics: those who regularly attend mass and those who do not. The authors point this out to demonstrate that if the person does not tend to attend regularly, then it is more likely that they are not interested with the Catholic policy and will therefore not have conservative thinking in comparison to those who do attend regularly.
Biblical literature becomes relatively important in regards to the issue of same sex marriage since it depicts homosexuality as “a troubling moral and social phenomenon” (Ellison, Acevedo & Ramos, p 37) and indicates that marriage between a man and woman is natural, while anything else is considered taboo. Not only do these ideologies result from biblical literature, but so does the way a minister or priest uses the literature to negatively shape political views on those who attend service regularly. The Catholic church, in contrary to the Protestant church, is described to have priests that are knowledgeable about social issues in comparison to the parishioners, indicating that the clergy have some kind of influence on the political views of the people, in both positive and negative ways.
Ellison, C., Acevedo, G., & Ramos-Wada, A. (2011). Religion and Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage Among U.S. Latinos. Social Science Quarterly, 92(1), 35-56.