Conflict Between Religious Beliefs And Sexuality: An Autoethnography By Carlos Gerena

In the article journal, Conflict Between Religious Beliefs and Sexuality: An Autoethnography by Carlos E. Gerena, the author is conducting qualitative research to better understand the conflicts between religious beliefs and sexuality. Gerena is able to do this qualitative research by using his own personal experiences he faced in his life. Gerena is a gay Latino man that was raised in the Pentecostal church. That is what generated his interest in his qualitative research. One of the first points made by Gerena is that the church creates conflicts for members of the LGBTQ+. He explains this point by going into how the church has made him feel on many occasions. There were many instances in which the church made Gerena feel very confused. Genera says that “Experiencing conflict between my religious upbringing and my gay

This negative culture was shown to Gerena many times. This negative heteronormative culture means that the American society is normalizing the relationship between a man and a woman and making that the preferred relationship. One of the incidents in which Gerena saw the heteronormative culture of society was when he was leaving a gay bar. When he was leaving the bar there were men outside calling him and his friends “‘Faggots’ and yelling ‘How much do you charge for a hand job?’ and ‘Who is going to be my bitch?’” (Gerena, 2019). This is the type of behavior that Gerena was accustomed to from society. Which caused him to believe the world has a negative heteronormative culture. Gerena even goes on to say, “Incidents like these were a constant reminder of heteronormative culture in American society” (Gerena, 2019). This culture was a part of the reason Gerena was so fearful and ashamed of his sexual orientation. That is why he is writing about it in his research because he wants people to be aware of what is going on in society so they can change