Rituais, trajetórias religiosas e homossexualidade na cidade de Pelotas-RS.

Abstract

This dissertation is intended to bring discussions about the relationship between religion and homosexuality, with a focus on recent inclusive churches - also known in common sense as gays churches. The recent churches have as their main objective to meet the religious demands of a specific public - the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transsexual and Transgender) public. In this sense, my research focused on a religious group linked to one of these "inclusive" denominations - known as the Christian New Hope International Community (CCNEI) - specifically in a religious unit linked to CCNEI in the City of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul. This religious group has been active in Pelotas since 2015 and is part of a missionary enterprise of the Christian Community Church New Hope International with world headquarters in the State of São Paulo, which aims to expand and proliferate the proposal of an "inclusive" theology by the Brazilian states . In this way, the general objective of this research is to understand if the pentecostal rituals (praise, prayers in tongues, anointed oil, fire worship and holy supper) performed at the CCNEI in Pelotas allow homosexuals to be reintegrated into the evangelical sacred. In addition, I analyze the religious trajectories of the frequenters and how these were marked by prohibitions, deviations and conflicts with religious leaderships that were averse to the relations between people of the same sex. The rituals, some of them, happened regularly and were important for the group's interaction and socialization with family and friends. Symbologies and their meanings were also responsible for engendering their actions, not only at the moment of ritual, but also in their daily lives acting as an overcoming of conflicts and afflictions. For some regulars, ritual power represented to the group what they believed, producing meanings that led to their lives, their social, personal, and emotional relationships; for others, even though these ritualistic practices somehow function as a reintegration or return to the world of the sacred - I conceive of temporary reintegration, floating in transit - they were not enough to maintain a lasting bonding feeling or bond of belonging to the group. The ethnographic research conducted with a group in Pelotas began in 2017 and its completion in 2018, in which I systematically followed and observed the cults and events promoted by the religious cell, an ethnographic work that I sought to combine other research techniques such as participant observation and interviews.