religions Article Centrality of Religiosity among Select LGBTQs in the Philippines Fides del Castillo 1, * , Clarence Darro del Castillo 2 , Gregory Ching 3 and Michael Sepidoza Campos 1   Citation: del Castillo, Fides, Clarence Darro del Castillo, Gregory Ching, and Michael Sepidoza Campos. 2021. Centrality of Religiosity among Select LGBTQs in the Philippines. Religions 12: 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel12020083 Academic Editor: Stefan Huber Received: 29 December 2020 Accepted: 19 January 2021 Published: 28 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Theology and Religious Education Department, De La Salle University, Manila 1004, Philippines; michael.campos@dlsu.edu.ph 2 Administration Office, Lumina Foundation for Integral Human Development, Calamba City 4027, Philippines; cdbdelcastillo@gmail.com 3 Graduate Institute of Educational Leadership & Development, Research, and Development Center for Physical Education, Health, and Information Technology, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 24205, Taiwan; 094478@mail.fju.edu.tw * Correspondence: fides.delcastillo@dlsu.edu.ph Abstract: This paper investigates the salience of religion and the centrality of religiosity among select LGBTQs. Much consideration has been given to the identity categories of sex, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) were calculated for the overall CRSi-20 score and its five subscales. The results show that the overall CRSi-20 score is 3.68 (SD = 0.89), which indicates that the select LGBTQs are “religious”. As for the core dimensions of religiosity, the ideology subscale received the highest mean score (M = 4.16, SD = 0.88) while the public practice subscale received the lowest mean score (M = 3.21, SD = 1.15). The overall reliability of the survey is computed at 0.96, while the rest of the subscales have alpha values ranging from 0.81 to 0.95. Study outcomes confirm the general religiosity of participants, particularly among older respondents. Of the five subscales, ideology and private practice emerge as dominant categories. In terms of sex distribution, men tend to self-describe as “highly religious” in relation to women, who identify largely as “religious”. Keywords: religious education; inter-religious; human sexuality; gender; homosexuality; queer; youth; centrality of religiosity scale 1. Introduction In October 2020, news proliferated online concerning a statement by Pope Francis expressing clear support for civil unions. It was controversial as much for its content as its context—seemingly an advice given to a gay, partnered Roman Catholic who longed to raise his children in the church. Presumably, Francis affirmed the right of each person to family and its accompanying civil protection—“What we have to make is a law of civil coexistence, for they [LGBTQs] have the right to be legally covered” (Elie 2020). While the Pope had been known to utter similarly off-handed opinions in the past, the comment accentuated—yet again—the unwieldy interaction of sexuality and Christian teaching, theological application, to lived reality. This study was conceived initially to address a ministerial concern. The researchers observed the lack of structural resources that attended to the lived realities of persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). While literature on religious education and sexuality exists, few account for the experiences of Filipino LGBTQs, specifically their understandings of “religion”, “God”, “faith”, and questions of meaning. How can empirical data refine the assumptions of faith that churches uphold within the diverse landscape of human sexualities? To what extent do ministers and religious workers affirm and/or discount the religious experiences of Filipino LGBTQs when these fall outside the purview of institutional language? How do religious beliefs influence the subjective experience and behavior of Filipino LGBTQs? Religions 2021, 12, 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020083 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions