Interfaith Experiences and Their Relationship with Heterosexual Collegians’ Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People

Abstract

For queer-spectrum students, college and university campuses are often sites of marginalization, discrimination, and/or harassment. Though such experiences are not singularly attributable to worldview, research highlights the role that religious identity plays in shaping individuals' perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. Absent from current scholarship, however, is insight into the ways in which interfaith experiences may influence those attitudes. As such, this study uses data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) to explore how formal and informal campus interfaith experiences and provocative encounters with worldview diversity relate to heterosexual students' appreciative attitudes toward LGB people. In addition to reinforcing the importance of friendships with individuals of different sexual orientations, our findings underscore the roles that campus space for support and spiritual expression, provocative encounters with worldview diversity, and interfaith behaviors play in fostering heterosexual students' appreciative attitudes toward LGB people.