Legacy Denied: African American Gay Men, AIDS, and the Black Church.

African American religious congregations have a historic role of providing African Americans religious education, spiritual formation, and shelter from societal oppression (Billingsley, 1992; Williams, 1972). However, there are African American gay men living with AIDS who feel alienated from African American religious congregations. These men experience various homophobic and AIDS-phobic messages that increase their feelings of stigma and castigation (Lima, Lo Presto, Sherman, & Sobelman, 1993), diminish their religious identity, and threaten the loss of salient cultural and historical resources unique to African American congregations (Miller, 2000). Although removing themselves from hostile or unsupportive religious environments may be adaptive (Mahaffy, 1996), the absence of important religious affiliations is a salient void in the lives of these men (Fullilove & Fullilove, 1999; Woodyard, Peterson, & Stokes, 2000). As children, many African American gay men with AIDS are raised in African American families. African American families report significant church involvement (Bell & Bell, 1999; McAdoo & Crawford, 1990), derive benefits from church involvement (McRae,Thompson, & Cooper, 1999; Moore, 1991), and transmit the values of such involvement to their children (Haight, 2002). Although social science research has examined the value of church participation and religious affiliation in the lives of African Americans (Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990; Taylor, Chatters, & Levin, 2004), there is a dearth of research on the religious development of African American gay men with AIDS. How do African American gay men living with AIDS experience religious development? Does their sexual orientation and disease status reveal a conflict with religiously sanctioned homophobia? How do they manage the potential conflicts?