Attitudes towards homosexuals from members of a Mexican Religious Community Center

Introduction: In Mexico there’s more than one million homosexuals, who usually report rejection by their own family members, impliying the need of search for support and security in other contexts, such as the religious. Despite the messages of compassion and support that religious centers usually provide, there is still rejection towards sexual minorities. The aim of this study was to identify the acceptance and rejection of homosexuals in a Mexican religious center.
Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 111 people belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The scale of attitude towards homosexuality was applied. Correlation analysis, t Student, ANOVA with Tukey's post-hoc test and hierarchical regression models were conducted.
Results: The analyses revealed that acceptance of homosexuals is greater than their rejection. However, a certain tendency to rejection persists, especially in the younger population of this study.
Conclusion: Religious practices can be both a source of support and distress for the homosexual population. In this study it was identified the degree of acceptance and rejection of heterosexual members of a Mexican religious center toward homosexuals, allowing us to discern the need to focus future interventions on the acceptance of the homosexual population.