LGBTQ church statistics show a complicated picture: LGBTQ adults are less likely than non-LGBT adults to identify with a religion or attend services, yet many remain connected to faith. Congregational attitudes also vary sharply by tradition, and “welcoming” does not always mean agreement on leadership, teaching, or marriage.
Contents
- Religious identity and importance
- Worship, prayer, and belief
- Views on same-sex relationships
- Views on transgender acceptance
- How churchgoers describe congregations
- LGBTQ participation and leadership
- Denominational policy and membership context
Religious identity and importance
The Pew Research Center report Religion and spirituality among LGBT Americans found that 48% of U.S. LGBT adults identify with a religion. The comparable share among non-LGBT Americans is 73%. The same report says 52% of LGBT adults are religiously unaffiliated, compared with 26% of non-LGBT adults.
Religious identity is only one measure of spiritual connection. In the Pew data, 17% of LGBT adults say religion is very important to them personally, while 42% of non-LGBT adults say the same. These figures describe U.S. adults and should not be read as a measure of every LGBTQ community or every denomination.
An earlier Pew Research Center analysis, based on its 2014 Religious Landscape Study, reported that 41% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults identified as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. The corresponding figure for straight adults was 22%. Because this is an earlier measurement, it provides historical context rather than a direct update of the newer LGBT-adult figures.
The Pew data also place LGBTQ identity in the wider U.S. population: 8% of Americans are LGBT. Together, the results indicate that LGBTQ people are not a single religious bloc. Some are affiliated with congregations, some are unaffiliated but spiritual, and others do not identify with religion.
Worship, prayer, and belief
Participation measures show a consistent gap between LGBT and non-LGBT adults in the Pew Research Center’s Religion and spirituality among LGBT Americans report. Sixteen percent of LGBT adults attend religious services at least monthly, compared with 31% of non-LGBT adults. Daily prayer is reported by 23% of LGBT adults and 46% of non-LGBT adults.
The earlier 2014 Pew analysis adds detail by sexual-orientation group. Nineteen percent of bisexual adults said they attended religious services weekly, compared with 16% of lesbian and gay adults. The same analysis reported that 36% of straight adults attended a house of worship regularly.
Belief measures also differ. In the 2014 Pew results, 77% of LGB adults said they believe in God, compared with 89% of straight adults. On scripture, 38% of bisexual adults said scripture is the word of God, while 33% of gay and lesbian adults and 61% of straight adults said this.
Religion’s personal importance was reported by 34% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults, compared with 54% of straight adults in that earlier Pew analysis. The wording and field period of this historical study differ from the newer report, so the percentages should be kept in their original measurement contexts.
| Measure | LGBT/LGB adults | Comparison group | Source context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identify with a religion | 48% | 73% non-LGBT adults | Pew, Religion and spirituality among LGBT Americans |
| Religious importance | 17% | 42% non-LGBT adults | Pew, same report |
| Monthly service attendance | 16% | 31% non-LGBT adults | Pew, same report |
| Daily prayer | 23% | 46% non-LGBT adults | Pew, same report |
| Believe in God | 77% | 89% straight adults | Pew, 2014 RLS analysis |
Views on same-sex relationships
The Pew Research Center report Religion & views on LGBTQ issues, abortion in the US found that 59% of adults who identify with a religion say homosexuality should be accepted by society. Among religiously unaffiliated adults, the figure is 87%.
Views on same-sex marriage vary within religious groups. Fifty-five percent of Christians favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally. The share is 70% among Catholics and 56% among historically Black Protestant adults. In contrast, 62% of evangelical Protestants oppose same-sex marriage, as do 56% of Latter-day Saints.
These statistics measure public opinion, not the formal policy of every congregation. A person may favor legal marriage while belonging to a church with a different marriage policy, or may attend a congregation whose local practice differs from a denomination-wide position.
Church policy and pastoral practice can also change over time. UM News, in Bishops offer advice after gay marriage ruling, reported that 46% of U.S. United Methodist members agreed with the church’s ban on same-sex marriage and 38% disagreed. The report placed these opinions alongside a U.S. United Methodist membership figure of 7.3 million.
The same UM News report said that eight United Methodist bishops had offered similar pastoral guidelines on same-gender weddings. It reported that, since 1972, the Book of Discipline had said homosexuality was incompatible with Christian teaching and that, since 2004, conducting a same-sex wedding had been a chargeable offense under United Methodist church law. It also described the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex civil marriage in all 50 states. These are historical and institutional facts from that report, not claims that all current local practices are identical.
Views on transgender acceptance
The Pew Research Center’s Religion & views on LGBTQ issues, abortion in the US report asked whether greater acceptance of transgender people is a change for the better or worse. Fifty-eight percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans said it is a change for the better, compared with 32% of Americans who identify with a religion.
The results differ by religious tradition. Sixty-seven percent of U.S. Hindus and 59% of U.S. Jews said greater acceptance is a change for the better. Among mainline Protestants, 39% said greater social acceptance is a change for the better and 37% said it is a change for the worse.
Other groups leaned toward viewing the change as worse: 47% of U.S. Christians, 48% of Muslims, 64% of evangelical Protestants, 55% of Latter-day Saints, and 50% of Orthodox Christians gave that response. These figures describe views about social change; they do not measure the number of welcoming congregations or the treatment of a particular visitor.
The same Pew report also included abortion attitudes, which help show that religious views are issue-specific rather than reducible to one general scale. Sixty-nine percent of Latter-day Saints and 65% of evangelical Protestants said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Those results should not be used as a proxy for their views on LGBTQ people.
How churchgoers describe congregations
PRRI’s Religion and congregations in a time of social and political upheaval reported that 75% of churchgoers say their church is welcoming and kind to everyone, including LGBTQ people. The share was 81% among white mainline or non-evangelical Protestants and 64% among Hispanic Catholics.
At the same time, many churchgoers prefer less discussion of LGBTQ-related topics. Forty-eight percent said they prefer to attend a church that does not discuss gender and sexuality issues. This preference can coexist with a general description of a church as welcoming, so the two measurements should not be treated as opposites.
Questions about representation show another distinction. Twenty-one percent of churchgoers wished there were more LGBTQ people in their church’s leadership. Eighteen percent wished their church talked more about transgender rights. Among Hispanic Catholics, 33% wished their church talked more about transgender rights.
The PRRI figures suggest that congregational climate has several dimensions: interpersonal welcome, public discussion, leadership representation, and attention to transgender rights. A single “welcoming” percentage cannot capture all four.
LGBTQ participation and leadership
Lifeway Research’s report same-sex church weddings and LGBT serving in church measured Protestant pastors’ views about roles LGBTQ people can hold. Forty-four percent said LGBT people can serve in helping or serving roles, 32% said they can lead public worship, 33% said they can hold public leadership roles, and 32% said they can teach publicly. Eleven percent of Protestant senior pastors had been asked to perform a same-sex wedding.
The figures differ substantially between mainline and evangelical pastors:
| Role or practice | Mainline pastors | Evangelical pastors |
|---|---|---|
| Serve in helping or serving roles | 64% | 35% |
| Lead worship | 54% | 19% |
| Teach publicly | 54% | 20% |
| Hold leadership roles | 55% | 21% |
These results distinguish permission to participate from permission to lead. In the mainline group, 64% allowed helping or serving roles, compared with 54% for worship leadership and teaching and 55% for public leadership. In the evangelical group, the corresponding shares were 35%, 19%, 20%, and 21%.
The Lifeway results concern pastors’ reported views, not a census of congregational policies. They also do not establish whether a church has LGBTQ members, how many attend, or how consistently a stated policy is experienced in practice.
Denominational policy and membership context
An ELCA report titled ELCA Clergy Support Gay, Lesbian Rights, Ordination, Survey Says found that 54% of ELCA clergy supported ordination with no special requirements for people who are gay or lesbian. Thirty-two percent said gay or lesbian people should be ordained only if celibate, and 14% said they should not be eligible for ordination at all.
On same-sex marriage, 46% of ELCA clergy supported performing same-sex marriages in states where they were legal. The report gave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s membership as 4.6 million at the time of that report. That membership figure is tied to the report’s period and should not be treated as a current count.
Attendance varies across religious groups. Gallup’s Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups reported regular attendance rates of 67% for Mormons, 44% for Protestants, 38% for Muslims, 33% for Catholics, 26% for Orthodox adults, 22% for Jewish adults, 14% for Buddhist adults, and 13% for Hindu adults. Among Americans with no religious affiliation, 3% said they attended weekly or nearly weekly.
Gallup also reported that 30% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week in 2021–2023. The range across groups reinforces why LGBTQ church statistics need clear denominational and geographic labels: national averages can conceal substantial differences in religious practice and congregational context.