The Special Role of Religion in LGBT-Related Attitudes

Author(s):  
Abigail Vegter ◽  
Donald P. Haider-Markel

Religious tradition and religiosity affect attitudes toward LGBT people, their rights, and their position within religious communities. There is significant variability within the American context concerning how religious traditions approach issues related to sexuality and gender identity, with monotheistic religions holding more conservative positions. These positions and the elites who hold them often influence the attitudes of their congregants, but not always, as some congregations diverge from the official positions of their denominations in terms of attitudes toward LGBT rights, religious leadership, and congregational membership. As the religious landscape is consistently changing in terms of attitudes toward sexual minorities, understanding the special role of religion in LGBT-related attitudes remains important and an area ripe for future scholarship.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-526
Author(s):  
Phillip M Ayoub

Abstract This piece dialogues with Htun and Weldon's exceptional new book, The Logics of Gender Justice, as it relates to LGBTI rights. Beyond engaging the authors' questions of when and why governments promote women's rights, I also engage their argument that equality is not one issue but many linked issues, including issues of sexuality and gender identity. My own reflections on their work thus address the contributions the book makes to the study of political science, as well as open questions about how their logic of gender justice might apply across other issue areas less explored in the book. Htun and Weldon's own definition of gender justice also rightly includes space for LGBTQI people, which I see as an invitation to think through the typology in relation to these communities. The piece begins by reflecting on the book's theoretical and methodical innovations around the complexities of gender politics, before moving on to the multi-faceted role of religion in gender justice, and then theoretical assumptions around visibility of the marginalized.


2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 819-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Hitzer ◽  
Joachim Schlör

This article introduces a special issue that investigates the place of religion in the spatial and cultural organization of west and east European cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Discussing different frameworks for a conceptualization of the role of religion within the urban context during the past two hundred years, it argues for adopting a broader perspective that takes into account the multiple and often conflicting processes and practices of religious modernization. Thus, it places particular emphasis on scrutinizing a space in between, that is to say, the area of contact between the outward influence on the spatial development of religious communities on the one hand and the inner workings of such communities on the other hand. Based on an 1880s debate over the way Jewish immigrants changed the religious landscape of New York Jewry as well as on the results of the following contributions, it supports a fresh look at the turn of the century as a period of intensified religious life and visibility within metropolises that contributed to the development of more “modern,” individualized forms of religious sociability and, in the same vein, fostered the emergence of modern urbanity.


Author(s):  
Samuel Helfont

Chapter 1 discusses Saddam Hussein’s rise to the presidency in Ba’thist Iraq in which he inherited an existing relationship between his regime and the Iraqi religious landscape. Saddam also inherited a rich Ba‘thist intellectual heritage, which had a good deal to say about religion, and Islam in particular, and offered what he considered to be powerful tools to face the challenges that lay before him. Chapter 1 highlights the the role of religion in Saddam’s rise to power and the secret polices on religion that he enacted. It will then discuss the initial steps he took to consolidate his power and contain uprisings within Iraq’s religious landscape. His polices reflect a Ba’thist interpretation of Islam that was first articulated by the Syrian Christian intellectual, Michel Aflaq, in the mid-20th century. Under Saddam’s leadership, the Ba’thist regime attempts to impose its ideas on religion.


Sexualities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Toft ◽  
Anita Franklin ◽  
Emma Langley

Contemporary discourse on sexuality presents a picture of fluidity and malleability, with research continuing to frame sexuality as negotiable, within certain parameters and social structures. Such investigation is fraught with difficulties, due in part to the fact that as one explores how identity shifts, language terms such as ‘phase’ emerge conjuring images of a definitive path towards an end-goal, as young people battle through a period of confusion and emerge at their true or authentic identity. Seeing sexuality and gender identity as a phase can delegitimise and prevent access to support, which is not offered due to the misconception that it is not relevant and that one can grow out of being LGBT+. This article explores the lives of disabled LGBT + young people from their perspective, using their experiences and stories to explore their identities and examine how this links to the misconception of their sexuality and gender as a phase. Taking inspiration from the work of scholars exploring sexual and gender identity, and sexual storytelling; the article is framed by intersectionality which allows for a detailed analysis of how identities interact and inform, when used as an analytic tool. The article calls for a more nuanced understanding of sexuality and gender in the lives of disabled LGBT + young people, which will help to reduce inequality and exclusion.


2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Kołczyńska

This article presents one of the many faces of contemporary Islam in the Balkans, that of the Bektashi community in Albania, and specifically the Sari Saltik teqe (sanctuary) on Kruja mountain. In so doing, it sheds light on the role of religion in 'post-atheist' Albania, while taking into account major changes to the religious landscape in the post-communist, and arguably post-transformation context. The essay ethnographically examines the challenges posed by societal changes for the Kruja teqe, which is undergoing its own micro-scale technological revolution in the form of a newly constructed asphalt road to the top of the mountain, which will likely have far-reaching consequences for the shrine and the whole local community. The essay thus illustrates how Albanian society has become entangled with the turbulent processes of modernisation, increased mobility and the globalising world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxie Chuang ◽  
Kimin Eom ◽  
Heejung S. Kim

This study examined the role of religion in xenophobic responses to the threat of Ebola. Religious communities often offer members strong social ties and social support, which may help members cope with psychological and physical threat, including global threats like Ebola. Our analysis of a nationally representative sample in the U.S. (N = 1,000) found that overall, the more vulnerable to Ebola people felt, the more they exhibited xenophobic responses, but this relationship was moderated by importance of religion. Those who perceived religion as more important in their lives exhibited weaker xenophobic reactions than those who perceived religion as less important. Furthermore, social connectedness measured by collectivism explained the moderating role of religion, suggesting that higher collectivism associated with religion served as a psychological buffer. Religious people showed attenuated threat responses because they had a stronger social system that may offer resources for its members to cope with psychological and physical threats. The current research highlights that different cultural groups react to increased threats in divergent ways.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valéria Melki Busin

No presente artigo, apresentamos elementos da composição atual do campo religioso brasileiro em função daquilo que será necessário para iluminar a discussão sobre as relações entre religião, sexualidades e gênero. Buscamos compreender teoricamente o papel desempenhado pelas religiões, mais especificamente do Catolicismo, na vida das pessoas que aderem a elas ou na cultura envolvente. Elencamos questões relacionadas à moral sexual católica, à família e ao ethos privado. Apresentamos indagações que envolvem o Catolicismo e a desigualdade de gênero. Discutiremos a religião como modeladora de subjetividades e traremos os sentimentos de culpa e vergonha relacionados à homossexualidade e à religião. Apresentaremos uma especificidade do trânsito religioso de homossexuais e, por fim, faremos a relação entre alguns princípios religiosos relativos à sexualidade e o exercício de poder em diversas esferas: simbólico-discursiva, pastoral, privada, pública etc. Palavras-chave: religião, sexualidade, homossexualidade, gênero. Abstract In this paper, we present elements of the current composition of the Brazilian religious field in terms of what will be needed to illuminate the discussion of relations between religion, sexuality and gender. We seek to understand theoretically the role played by religions, specifically Catholicism, in the lives of people who adhere to them or in the surrounding culture. We list questions relating Catholic sexual morality, family and private ethos. We introduce questions that involve Catholicism and gender inequality. We discuss the role of the religion as modeler of subjectivities and we bring feelings of guilt and shame related to homosexuality and religion. We present a specificity of religious transit of homosexuals and, finally, we will link some religious principles relating to sexuality with the exercise of power in several spheres: the symbolic-discursive, pastoral, private, public etc Keywords: religion, sexuality, homosexuality, gender.


Author(s):  
Tendayi Achiume E

The experiences of refugees are heavily mediated by race and ethnicity, and international law plays a significant role in this mediation—in some cases offering important protections, and in others entrenching discrimination and exclusion. This Chapter makes four contributions. First, it articulates a structural and intersectional account of race, racial discrimination and xenophobic discrimination as essential starting points for international legal analysis of race and refugees. This analysis includes the overlap and distinctions between racial and xenophobic discrimination, as well as the role of religion, class and gender in shaping racial discrimination against refugees. Secondly, it reviews the doctrine on race and refugees in international refugee law and international human rights law, and maps the attendant academic literature analyzing this law. Thirdly, the Chapter canvasses legal scholarship that has examined the structure, history and development of the international refugee regime in relation to race. Finally, it concludes with reflections on a research agenda on race and refugees.


2019 ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Tim Clydesdale ◽  
Kathleen Garces-Foley

Relying on in-depth interviews and the National Study of American Twentysomethings, this chapter describes the heterogeneous young adults who are religious unaffiliated. Known in the popular press as the Nones, most of these young adults were raised in a Christian religious tradition, which they now reject, but that does not mean they have no interest in religion. Some are anti-religious and many are disinterested, but others hold traditional beliefs in a personal God and in an afterlife while rejecting religious institutions. Still others create an eclectic spirituality that draws from many religious traditions. The chapter provides estimated proportions of Nones who are philosophical secularists, indifferent secularists, spiritual eclectics, and unaffiliated believers. This chapter examines the role of context in the fluid religious, spiritual, and secular identities of twentysomething Nones and reports on the values, behaviors, and confidence in social institutions of this growing population.


Author(s):  
Emilia Justyna Powell

This chapter explores in considerable detail differences and similarities between the Islamic legal tradition and international law. It discusses in detail the historical interaction between these legal traditions, their co-evolution, and the academic conversations on this topic. The chapter also addresses the Islamic milieu’s contributions to international law, and sources of Islamic law including the Quran, sunna, judicial consensus, and analogical reasoning. It talks about the role of religion in international law. Mapping the specific characteristics of Islamic law and international law offers a glimpse of the contrasting and similar paradigms, spirit, and operation of law. This chapter identifies three points of convergence: law of scholars, customary law, and rule of law; as well as three points of departure: relation between law and religion, sources of law, and religious features in the courtroom (religious affiliation and gender of judges, holy oaths).


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