The Lost Sheep

Abstract

The focus of the article is interviews with ten religious gay men in Havana. Interviews were conducted in 1999 and 2000. The men were from Catholic, Santeria, Protestant, and Pentecostal backgrounds. Common perceptions were that Santeria was the most welcoming religion to gays and that Pentecostalism was the least welcoming to gays. While many non- Catholics viewed the Catholic Church as welcoming, the gay Catholics in the study did not see the Church as welcoming, but they did tend to see it as more welcoming than Pentecostalism. Almost all the men in the study had come to reconcile their sexuality and their spirituality, but they did so through private reflection and prayer rather than through a gay religious community, or through a religious community that was welcoming to gays, or through a gay community that was interested in religion. Overall, the experience of being gay and religious involved a great deal of solitary reflection for the subjects.