Religiosity, internalized homonegativity and outness in Christian men who have sex with men

When exposed to their congregations' negative views of homosexuality, Christian men who have sex with men frequently struggle to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, possibly contributing to negative emotional states and behaviors associated with HIV/STI infection. To examine the influence of religiousity on internalized homonegativity and outness among Christian men who have sex with men, we used survey data from 1165 men who answered questions about their religious beliefs and sexual behavior. We stratified participants based on religious affiliation groupings: Catholic, Mainline Protestant and Evangelical Protestant. After using confirmatory factor analysis to verify that the selected measures of religiosity were equivalent between groups, we used structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between religiosity, internalized homonegativity and outness. Among Catholics and Mainline Protestants, religiosity was not associated with internalized homonegativy or outness. However, among Evangelical Protestants - a group more likely to ascribe to religious fundamentalism - increased religiosity was associated with increased internalized homonegativity, which contributed to decreased outness. Our findings suggest that mental health providers and sexuality educators should be more concerned about the influence of religiosity on internalized homonegativity and outness when clients have a history of affiliation with Evangelical Protestant faiths more so than Catholic or Mainline Protestant faiths.