Image from brightestyoungthings.com

With the recent lgbtNOISE ‘rights not rites’ protest at the RDS, I’m pondering faith and spirituality among the lgbt community here.

Ireland’s always been a religious country and I attended a Catholic primary school and then a Dominican secondary and religion was always a very important school element. As well as that there was mass and confession when I was younger, I never really bought in to it though and spent most of my time wondering when the mass would finally end.”

I always thought religion was a very interesting subject and I enjoyed studying the different faiths of the world, finding something I liked in each. Right now I don’t have a specific faith but I do have a kind of faith in the world. Where I ask the world for things and believe that you get back what you give out.

We know not all churches or religious members condemn the gays or believe you can pray away the gay but there hasn’t been a lot of evidence of that over here, it’s always pictures of American churches with a gay flag outside or a welcoming message. If there was more widespread acceptance of the lgbt community among churches in Ireland would we be any more religious?

What I would like to know is what other members of the lgbt community here think of faith, not organised religion as such, but what you believe in. Are any lgbt people religious here? Or are we just so fed up with the church and people using God as an excuse against us? When we come out of the closet does religion and faith take a back seat?