I'm not of the opinion that the majority of gays are atheist, but likely the majority of regular posters in Hot Topics are agnostic, but that's a pretty small number. We are likely to not be able to get reliable data, even in the West, until the significant number of gay men who are yet closeted have become a really small minority, and I don't think that has happened yet.
That said, the thread speaks to our psyche, as the majority of men our age and generation were formed in the cauldron of religion, if not Mount Doom.
I have several favorites, from very different traditions of hymnody. My earliest was
How Great Thou Art, as it was the first hymn I taught myself to play in four parts on the piano.
Another, now somewhat outdated, hymn I loved was
'Tis Midnight, And On Olive's Brow. It is melancholy, pensive, and doleful, but there is a need in the soul for such a voicing, relgion or no. It is a setting of the prayer in Gethsemane. The verse is now probably considered maudlin.
This acapella arrangement is more folk, but I knew it with piano or organ carrying the sostenuto:
The next one I remember really loving as a teen is
Be Still My Soul which is set to Finlandia. Both the verse and the harmony are very powerful. The effect is wistful and aspirational.
More recently, I am deeply moved by the setting of Psalm 84,
How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place, set to Brother James' Air. It is what I would have sung at my funeral if there is to be one. Although the final lines are compelling, my favorite text is about the swallows building their nest there, a timeless image of sanctuary. The textual setting is by Carl Daw, Jr.
How lovely is thy dwelling-place,
O Lord of Hosts, to me!
My thirsty soul desires and longs
within thy courts to be;
my very heart and flesh cry out,
O living God, for thee.
Beside thine altars, gracious Lord,
the swallows find a nest;
how happy they who dwell with thee
and praise thee without rest,
and happy they whose hearts are set
upon the pilgrim's quest.
They who go through the desert vale
will find it filled with springs,
and they shall climb from height to height
till Zion's temple rings
with praise to thee, in glory throned,
Lord God, great King of kings.
One day within thy courts excels
a thousand spent away;
how happy they who keep thy laws
nor from thy precepts stray,
for thou shalt surely bless all those
who live the words they pray.
