1. Introduction
In October 2020, news proliferated online concerning a statement by Pope Francis expressing clear support for civil unions. It was controversial as much for its content as its context—seemingly an advice given to a gay, partnered Roman Catholic who longed to raise his children in the church. Presumably, Francis affirmed the right of each person to family and its accompanying civil protection—“What we have to make is a law of civil coexistence, for they [LGBTQs] have the right to be legally covered” (
Elie 2020). While the Pope had been known to utter similarly off-handed opinions in the past, the comment accentuated—yet again—the unwieldy interaction of sexuality and Christian teaching, theological application, to lived reality.
This study was conceived initially to address a ministerial concern. The researchers observed the lack of structural resources that attended to the lived realities of persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). While literature on religious education and sexuality exists, few account for the experiences of Filipino LGBTQs, specifically their understandings of “religion”, “God”, “faith”, and questions of meaning. How can empirical data refine the assumptions of faith that churches uphold within the diverse landscape of human sexualities? To what extent do ministers and religious workers affirm and/or discount the religious experiences of Filipino LGBTQs when these fall outside the purview of institutional language? How do religious beliefs influence the subjective experience and behavior of Filipino LGBTQs?
To provide empirical grounding to these questions, the study utilized the interreligious form of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRSi-20) (
Huber and Huber 2012) to evaluate the extent to which religiosity occupies a central place in the life of select Filipino LGBTQs. By examining the boundaries at which articulations of “religion”, “faith”, “God”, and “meaning” interact and overlap, as well as mapping out the terrain of religious life among Filipino LGBTQs, the study hopes to offer quantitative data to conversations around human sexuality and lived faith in the Philippines.
5. Results and Discussion
The descriptive statistics of the overall CRSi-20 score and its five subscales are shown in
Table 2. The results show that the overall CRSi-20 score is 3.68 (SD = 0.89), which indicates that the select LGBTQs are “religious”. As for the core dimensions of religiosity, the ideology subscale received the highest mean score (M = 4.16, SD = 0.88), while the public practice subscale received the lowest mean score (M = 3.21, SD = 1.15). Regarding measures of skewness, all of the values are negative (−0.04 to −1.25), which suggests that the subscales are mostly concentrated on the higher scores. Additionally, the kurtosis of the data ranges from −1.16 to 1.21. Kurtosis with negative values signifies that the distribution is less peaked and has a lighter tail as compared to positive ones, which are more peaked and have a heavier tail (
Cohen 1988).
Cronbach’s (
1951) alpha values were also calculated to determine the internal consistency and reliability of the CRSi-20. The overall reliability of the survey is computed at 0.96, while the rest of the subscales have alpha values ranging from 0.81 to 0.95. These values, according to
Bryman and Cramer (
1990), denote that the CRSi-20 is a reliable instrument.
Correlational analysis was also conducted to determine the relationship among the subscales.
Table 3 shows that all of the subscales are correlated with each other. Additionally, the participants’
age is positively correlated with all of the subscales (including the overall CRSi-20 score). This lends evidence to the link between age and religiosity.
Several independent sample
T-tests were computed to compare the different levels of religiosities.
Table 4 shows that all participants’ who have religious beliefs (Column “Yes”) scored significantly higher in each of the subscales as opposed to those participants without religious beliefs (Column “No”). Additionally, the “effect sizes” for all the comparisons are quite large, as denoted by
Cohen’s (
1988)
d values 2.33 to 4.82 (note that values below 0.20 = very small, 0.20 to 0.49 = small, 0.50 to 0.79 = medium, 0.80 to 1.39 = large, and values above 1.40 are considered very large effect sizes).
Additionally, the religious intensities among the select LGBTQs were compared. As shown in
Table 4, the “highly religious” participants scored significantly higher in all of the subscales. Again, the “effect sizes” for all the comparisons are quite large, as denoted by
Cohen’s (
1988)
d values 1.36 to 2.77.
Table 5 shows the CRSi-20 items’ means and standard deviations for the different levels of religiosity. The data reveal that older participants have higher levels of religiosity.
Independent sample T-tests and analyses of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc tests were accomplished to determine if there are any significant differences between the demographics of the select LGBTQs and overall religiosity. The results showed that there are no significant differences between the participants’ location (urban and rural), biological gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, with overall CRSi-20 score and sub-scales.
Table 6 shows the differences in the centrality of religiosity between select LGBTQ Christians and non-Christians. The results of the independent sample
T-test showed that there are significant differences with very large effect sizes (1.00 to 1.36) (
Cohen 1988) on the religiosity of participants who are affiliated with the Christian religion (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Jehovah’s witness) and those who identified as non-Christians (Spiritual, Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, and not listed).
6. Conclusions and Outlook
At its inception, the study sought to explore the correlation of religiosity with the lived realities of Filipino LGTBQ youths. The authors assumed a tension between respondents’ sex/gender identities and affiliation with religious institutions. It is also a tension that presumably traverses private and public aspects of life.
The study outcomes confirm the general religiosity of participants, particularly among older respondents. Of the five subscales, ideology and private practice emerge as the dominant categories through which religiosity is articulated, practiced, and lived. Public service, intellect and experience follow. In terms of sex distribution, men tend to self-describe as “highly religious” in relation to women, who identify largely as “religious”. To the degree that women respondents outnumber men, a higher number of total respondents—regardless of sexual orientation—are inclined to be “religious”.
The data resonate with previous research by
del Castillo et al. (
2020) among Filipino youths. Drawn from a significantly larger pool, the results affirmed a pervasive religiosity defined also by ideology and private practice. Because this study focuses on a subset of Filipino youths, resonant levels seem to evoke a characteristic religiosity general to Filipino culture, rather than one informed by age, sexuality, and gender.
It is noteworthy to highlight differences across categories of sex, gender, and orientation. While there is a clear distinction among respondents who organize themselves according sex (male, female, intersex), a slight shift occurs under gender, with two respondents self-identifying as “transgender” and another opting not to list. Under sexual orientation, there is more diversity, with a number of respondents self-identifying as “bisexual”, followed by “gay”, “not listed”, and “lesbian” in diminishing frequency.
Overall, trends signify a minimal correlation between religiosity and sex/gender. The prominence of ideology and private practice as defining characteristics of religiosity echoes the kind of “reflexive” faith that Cornelio found among his respondents (
Cornelio 2016, pp. 26–27). Religious institutions—expressed through dogmatic and official teachings—seem to bear minimal influence on respondents’ personal faith. Religiosity resides primarily within the private domain; for
Cornelio (
2016), more specifically, personal religiosity reflects the nature of one’s relationships with immediate and extended family members.
6.1. Examining Assumptions around Filipino Culture Vis-a-Vis Personal Religiosity
Because the Philippine religious landscape is infused with Catholic ideology, several questions regarding this study, its working definition of “religion” vis-a-vis “culture”, and its method of data-gathering emerged. As the most obvious, the authors raise the possibility that respondents may overlook the correlation of one’s cultural values and habits with personal religiosity. To the extent that survey questions tended to describe religiosity as a personal, internal capacity for meaning-making, might the study have inadvertently diminished the role of culture—and other forms of public practice—in shaping individual religiosity?
Furthermore, the expected tensions between LGBTQ individuals and religious institutions have proven to be a non-issue among respondents—at least to the extent that personal contexts seem to minimally influence the quality of one’s religiosity. However, authors have also noted studies that describe the ubiquity of the bakla in religious rituals (
Campos 2012;
Alcedo 2007). In the United States, in fact, Jay Gonzalez and Martin Manalansán also traced the utility of religious rituals, such as the Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo, in scaffolding a Filipino diasporic identity, exposing the ways migrants employ religious discourse to assert political action (
Gonzalez 2009) and/or negotiate transnational gender identities (
Manalansán 2003). To the extent that this study seems to indicate a negligible correlation between culture and religion, the authors offer the following observations for consideration:
To what extent is Filipino religiosity—as the product of Spanish Catholic and American Protestant colonization—a specific expression of culture?
To what extent is Filipino religiosity shaped only by domestic relationships rather than any perceivable accountability to religious institutions?
To what extent does the CRS questionnaire explicitly address the correlation of culture with religious practice?
6.2. Examining Assumptions around Gender Identities within the Filipino Context
In terms of gender and sexuality, the authors also noted questions around the consistency of gender signifiers among respondents. Whereas “gay” or “lesbian” and “transgender” embody specific identities in the West, “gay” may not necessarily mean the same as bakla; “lesbian” may be assumed as much by females attracted to other females as by hyper-effeminate bakla who enter into sexual relationships with other gay men (
USAID, UNDP 2014). While Filipinos are generally steeped in English, levels of fluency among respondents will inevitably differ (
Esquivel 2019). Western gender terminologies thus tend to slip in through, and alongside, indigenous signifiers such as bakla, bayot, lesbyana, tomboy, binabae, etc. (
Espeño-Rosales 2019). Taking this into consideration, to what extent has the study assumed some level of acceptable consistency among respondents’ comprehension of gender signifiers?
6.3. Examining Assumptions around the Nature of Religiosity as “Personal” or “Internal”
The diminished relevance of church institutions among youth respondents raises larger questions around an emerging secularization since the Enlightenment that Charles
Taylor (
2007) describes as “disenchantment”. Rather than an antithesis to the religious worldview, secularism disengages religious practice to the “personal”, away from institutional churches. The democractic emphasis of post-Enlightenment societies encourages individual political participation. Thus, the “religious”—as a vehicle for meaning-making and transcendent sensibility—tends to be conflated with the “political”. Personal faith is absorbed into political action, reorienting the transcendent to the immanent (
Taylor 2007).
This modernist sensibility would explain, in part, the turn of religiosity to the personal. Returning to the Pew report on the God divide, perhaps this growing emphasis on interior religiosity signifies a larger, cultural shift towards secularization that is typical of emerging economies like that of the Philippines. With these in mind, the authors propose that we consider the study as a starting point for future studies that will do the following:
Reconsider the scope of “religiosity” as both a personal/private/interior and public/political phenomenon. Might there be value in expanding this working definition beyond the interior space?
Incorporate questions that invite respondents to qualify the role of their gender and/or sexual identity in public engagement;
Strategically expand the scope of the sample set beyond urban, largely religious, contexts;
Pay attention to the role of the big five personality traits in their link with religion;
Examine how the psychological stress of being part of the LGBTQ+ community in a social setting that forefronts heterosexual norms can account for the interest in religion’s soothing aspect.