Samuel Ernest graduated with his PhD in Religious Studies in 2026.
Dr. Ernest’s dissertation, “Fratriphilia: Kevin Gordon, Tim Dlugos, and the Making and Unmaking of Gay Lives and Gay Theologies,” opens a window into the development of gay theology in the United States from the Second Vatican Council through HIV/AIDS. He follows two men through their formations as De La Salle Christian Brothers, a lay order of Catholic teaching brothers, and documents how their time as brothers contributed to their lives as a public theologian and sex therapist working in the Castro (Kevin Gordon) and as a poet active in Saint Mark’s Poetry Project and then an Episcopal seminarian (Tim Dlugos). “Fratriphilia” argues that Vatican II’s reforms to religious orders and institutes, combined with the social movements of the 1960s, allowed gay brothers to leave their communities and enter the gay world as an extension of their fraternal vocations. In the gay world, they used skills and intellects honed in religious life to contribute to the building up of gay literary and theological institutions. Ernest is turning the dissertation into an intertwined biography of Gordon and Dlugos. His next academic project will be a history of gay theology.
During his doctoral program, Ernest founded Homodoxy, a traditional publishing company for gay/queer/trans theology of literature, to provide an alternative mode of queer theological writing and publishing beyond the pressures of peer review and denominational oversight. He is now working as the founding publisher and editor in chief to acquire manuscripts, edit them, and develop them into beautiful books—and fundraising to see the vision through. Homodoxy publishes new writing in all genres from a variety of spiritual traditions and older texts in need of new editions. To learn more about the press, visithomodoxy.com.
Ernest is available for teaching, speaking, and preaching engagements on a range of topics related to theology, literature, and sexuality. To learn more about him, visit samuelernest.com.