Legalized Same-Sex Marriage and Coming Out in America: Evidence from Catholic Seminaries

Avner Seror and Rohit Ticku ()
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Rohit Ticku: Chapman University

Working Papers from Chapman University, Economic Science Institute

Abstract: We study the effect of legalization of same-sex marriage on coming out in the United States. We overcome data limitations by inferring coming out decisions through a revealed preference mechanism. We exploit data on enrollment in seminary studies for the Catholic priesthood, hypothesizing that Catholic priests’ vow of celibacy may lead gay men to self-select as a way to avoid a heterosexual lifestyle. Using a differences-in-differences design that exploits variation in the timing of legalization across states, we ï¬ nd that city-level enrollment in priestly studies fell by about 15% exclusively in states adopting the reform. The celibacy norm appears to be driving our results, since we ï¬ nd no effect on enrollment in deacon or lay ministry studies that do not require celibacy. We also ï¬ nd that coming out decisions, as inferred through enrollment in priestly studies, are primarily affected by the presence of gay communities and by prevailing social attitudes toward gays. We explain our ï¬ ndings with a stylized model of lifestyle choice.

Keywords: Homosexuality; Religion; Identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 J15 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/344/

Related works:
Working Paper: Legalized Same-Sex Marriage and Coming Out in America: Evidence from Catholic Seminaries (2021)
Working Paper: Legalized Same-Sex Marriage and Coming Out in America: Evidence from Catholic Seminaries (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chu:wpaper:21-07

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