Health Promotion Practice July 2018 Vol. 19, No. (4) 542–549 DOI: 10.1177/1524839917738974 © 2017 Society for Public Health Education 542 Understanding Stakeholder Perspectives The purpose of this study is to explore the ways that some health care providers perceive the intersectional- ity of their autonomy, religious faith, and their medical practice, specifically when it comes to providing care for the LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual) community. Physicians (n = 25) and medical residents (n = 17) located in the southeast completed a qualitative survey regarding their views of working with LGBT+ patients. Five main themes resulted from the analysis: adequate education, communication, discrimination, duty versus physician autonomy, and religious exemption. In this analysis, we focus specifically on duty versus physician auton- omy and religious exemption since the other themes have been addressed in literature. The physicians and medical residents in this sample were divided among groups on the right to refuse treatment. Although there was not a question specific to religion, participants discussed religion in their responses to whether they believe in the right to refuse treatment. This division supports the need to decrease the current gap in knowl- edge regarding how religious views can affect physician treatment of LGBT+ patients and research effective ways to bridge the gap between physician autonomy and the duty to provide treatment. Keywords: access to health care; LGBT; minority health; public health laws/policies > INTRODUCTION In today’s politically charged climate, religious free- dom and conscience clauses have become the focus of action by judicial and legislative bodies in the United States. Conscience clauses allow individuals to deny services to others citing moral or religious freedom. Conscience clauses became prevalent following Roe v. Wade and gained more traction with the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores decision. Initially conscious clauses allowed physicians to cite religious freedom as a reason to deny performing medical procedures, including contraception, sterilization, and withdraw- ing of feeding tubes (Lin, 2006; Pellegrino, 1994). A concern of the Hobby Lobby Stores decision, which allowed employers to deny contraception coverage, is that the decision would empower employers to dis- criminate in other ways citing religious freedom (R. F. Wilson, 2016). Recently, the discussion of conscious clauses has been expanded to groups of people, that is, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBT+) individuals. Bakeries and photogra- phers refuse to provide wedding services for LGBT+ couples on the grounds of religious freedom (Lupu & Tuttle, 2010). The field of health care is no exception (Baker, 2009; Loftus, 2001; Reibman, 2009; Röndahl, 2009; Sirota, 2013; R. F. Wilson, 2016; C. K. Wilson et al., 2014). Yet previous research specific to religion and discrimination in health care deals mostly with stigmatized religions or HIV/AIDS patients being 738974HPP XX X 10.1177/1524839917738974Health Promotion PracticePrairie et al. / PHYSICIAN AUTONOMY, RELIGION, AND LGBT+ PATIENTS research-article 2017 1 Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA Authors’ Note: Address correspondence to Tara M. Prairie, Department of Health and Human Performance, Middle Tennessee State University, 1301 East Main Street, Box 96, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA; e-mail: tprairie@mtmail.mtsu.edu. Intersections of Physician Autonomy, Religion, and Health Care When Working With LGBT+ Patients Tara M. Prairie, MA 1 Bethany Wrye, PhD 1 Sarah Murfree, MS 1