Even though many LGBT individuals believe that most religious doctrines are unwelcoming of their community, a significant number of them like to consider themselves religious, found a new study by Pew Research Center. However, they are much less likely to associate with Christianity in comparison to the general public and more probable to be attracted to smaller, non-Christian faiths.

According to the study, approximately five percent of more than 35,000 respondents who participated in the 2014 Religious Landscape Study identified as LGBT individuals. In that group, as many as 59 percent said they are religious but only 48 percent said they belong to any one Christian denomination as opposed to 71 percent of the general public.

In another contrast, the study found that while only six percent of the general public identified with a non-Christian faith, approximately twice as many (11 percent) LGBT individuals did so, with almost half of them saying that they belong to a smaller, non-Christian faith – 2.9 percent chose Unitarian Universalist and other far liberal faiths, 2.4 percent chose

New Age groups like Pagans or Wiccans and two percent chose Judaism or Buddhism.

The study also found that LGBT individuals differed from the general public in that they were much more likely to be religiously unaffiliated with the figure being clocked at 41 percent, which happened to be almost twice the rate of Americans overall (22.8 percent).

In 2013, Pew Research Center had assessed the attitudes of LGBT Americans and gauged their views on religion through another survey. Even though that survey used a slightly different methodology and included a smaller number of respondents, some of its data on religion did add an interesting perspective to the latest study.

Photo Credits: One Equal World