Health Care

Faith-Based Health Care and the LGBT Community:
Opportunities and Barriers to Equitable Care

This paper is the result of a collective desire to understand the contemporary state of LGBT health care and LGBT equity in faith-based health care institutions. Specifically, this paper demonstrates ways in which faith-based health care institutions, given their missions, are uniquely positioned, when called on, to address the needs of the LGBT community. It also explores the possible tensions between the policies and practices necessary to promote health equity and inclusion for LGBT patients and families, and the mission and values of many faith-based health care institutions.

Faith-based health care organizations, while faced with the same challenges as secular organizations, often face additional constraints and challenges due to their particular faith affiliations. While studies looking at the delivery of health care to LGBT patients in faith-based institutions are limited, over the past few years, a number of court cases have been fought, at the state and federal level that suggest the potential for conflict when LGBT people try to access certain consumer services. Due to this dearth of healthcare-focused research, we were curious to explore the dynamic of LGBT equality in the context of patient care at faith-based health care institutions.

Made Possible By: The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation