“Love the sin, hate the sinner”: Attitudes Towards Sexuality Among Mainline and Evangelical Protestants in the USA

Attitudes towards gay and lesbian people and same-sex marriage remain a contentious issue within Evangelical Protestantism.

We use data from the Sexuality version of the Implicit Association Test from the Project Implicit website (n = 180,554) between 2006 and 2016. We investigate the attitudes of Atheists, Mainline Protestants and Evangelical Protestants towards gay and lesbian people and same-sex marriage.

In an inversion of the typical mantra, Evangelical Protestant participants appear to “love the sin, hate the sinner,” with relatively high levels of approval for same-sex marriage combined with significant negative associations with gay and lesbian people. Further, we find significant differences between Mainline and Evangelical Protestants who are also gay, lesbian or bisexual compared to those who are heterosexual.

We discuss the cognitive dissonance between compassionate Christianity (“love thy neighbour”) and negative associations towards gay and lesbian people and the intersections of religious and sexual identities.

Policy Implications.

Results suggest that among Evangelical Protestants same-sex marriage is supported by a sizeable minority (40 + %). Efforts to improve attitudes towards same-sex marriage should focus on attempts to generate further improvements in attitudes among conservative Christians.