What was Shakespeare's religion?

Since we do not know much about the personal life of William Shakespeare, we cannot say for sure what religion he practiced in private. We do know that he was born under the rule of Elizabeth I, who was Protestant and outlawed Catholicism. Thus, Shakespeare's public faith would have been Protestant. Shakespeare's parents, however, were very likely covert Catholics and Shakespeare's father, John, was close friends with William Catesby, the father of the head conspirator in the gunpowder plot to blow the Protestant monarchy to smithereens. Was Shakespeare homosexual? The only indication we have that Shakespeare might have been gay comes from the sonnets. In the early sonnets, Shakespeare writes about his great love, who happens to be a young man. While many people assume this to mean that he had a male lover and thus was either gay or bisexual, there are others who still believe that his male friend was not his lover but someone who was simply very close to him emotionally. We will never ... more