Acculturation and decoupling processes on attitudes towards gay marriage: A survey study in Denmark and the Netherlands among Russian Christian and Turkish Muslim migrants

Within Europe, migrants are often the subject of societal debate, stressing the incompatibility of outside cultures with so-called Western values. Through Social Identity Theory we investigate how first-generation migrants adapt their attitudes towards gay marriage. We compare Turkish Muslim to Russian Orthodox Christians. Adaptation processes (acculturation and decoupling) are investigated in both migrant groups in the Dutch and Danish context, in light of degree of religiousness and home-country connectivity. Our results indicate that adaptation takes place through a decoupling mechanism both for Turkish Muslim and Russian Orthodox with regards to the degree of religiousness. Meaning that those who have been in the receiving country longer are more likely to adapt their attitudes, regardless of their religiousness. This process appears much slower among Turkish Muslims than among Russian Orthodox Christians.

Conclusion: Roman Decline and Fall in Contemporary America

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Gibbon’s story of Roman decline and fall has frequently inspired attacks on changing elements of modern society. These attacks claim one needs to defend tradition if one wants contemporary society to avoid falling like Rome. Since the late 1960s, Americans as diverse as Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly, and Ben Carson have used this comparison to attack the welfare system, feminism, and gay marriage. The idea has also been adapted by alt-right figures like Richard Spencer into a call for a restoration of Rome. The book concludes by surveying ancient, medieval, and modern figures like Seneca and Romanus the Melode who suggest how cultural, religious, and material elements of Roman life might have reinforced the power of ideas of Roman decline and renewal by encouraging people to feel a personal connection to the Roman past and the figures who shaped it.

LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) and the Question of Holistic Human Life Development: Issues and Perspectives

Sexuality is a fundamental component of human personal existence. Human sexuality as an aspect of human existence in the world involves a variety of dimensions, in dealing with these dimensions of human sexuality, this paper adopts a favored option regarding the multi-disciplinary procedural framework. In the context of the multidisciplinary procedural framework this paper pays attention to the question of terminology and theories in relation to the origins of homosexuality, health and disease categories, together with the holistic Development of human life viz-a-viz issues and perspectives. In the polarized arena of public and social discourse, with a cacophony of voices calling for or against the legal institutionalization of “gay marriage,” it is also important to call attention to the imperative of responsibility as an overarching ethical imperative. However, this papers overall goals are to stimulate thought by disrupting the present paradigm of counseling psychology as a primarily ameliorative endeavor, and to replace professional rhetoric regarding prevention and advocacy with concrete recommendations informed by pastoral doctrinal theory and research.

The curious story of the 2018 Romanian traditional family referendum: buck-passing and the failure to mobilise voters

In 2018, a referendum to revise the Constitution took place in Romania. Just one article was in contention for revision. The goal was to make gay marriage unconstitutional. In the end, the referendum failed due to a low turnout of just 21.1%, below the 30% threshold required for validation. This paper looks into the causes of the low turnout. First, there is an overview of knowns and unknowns, such as lack of exit poll data and issues with the voting population numbers. The bulk of the paper deals with two overlapping narratives about the causes of low turnout - first, a boycott campaign and second, a combination of factors, especially low mobilisation. Using precinct level results, supplemented by pre and post referendum polling data, an examination of evidence for both narratives is put forward. The results provide a case for failure of mobilisation by main political parties and religious organisations, especially the Orthodox Church, despite public statements of support for a “Yes” vote in the referendum. In turn, this was based on a buck-passing strategy by political parties and religious organisations.

Performing the Filipina Mail-Order Bride

Chapter 3 argues that the video and performance art project Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride, by the Filipina American video and performance art ensemble the Mail Order Brides / M.O.B., reconfigures the discourse of Filipina mail-order brides as abject figures. Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride undermines the heteronormativity and masculinism of Filipina/o American cultural nationalism while also critiquing the homonationalism of LGBT cultural politics in the United States. Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride is situated within a broader US political context of queer neoliberalism, in which gay marriage is a sign of homonational belonging. A queer neoliberal logic commodifies the labor of transnational Filipina bodies, revealing the inherent racism of the mainstream LGBT movement’s inability to address issues of race, migration, and labor.

A Complex Religion Approach to the Differing Impact of Education on Black and White Religious Group Members’ Political Views

This paper examines the interaction of education for both Blacks and Whites in all major religious groups on four key political issues: Abortion, gay marriage, feelings toward redistribution, and political party identification. We find that for most Blacks, race is the most salient factor across all four political dimensions; whereas there is significant variation by religion and education for Whites, there is very little difference for Blacks. As previous research has noted, Blacks are generally more conservative on gay marriage and Blacks are generally positive about redistribution, much more so than most Whites regardless of education and religion. We find education is more liberating to Whites than Blacks. The only issue for which education has significant effects for Blacks is abortion, but even in this case, unlike for Whites, there are not large religious differences among Blacks. This study corroborates previous research that abortion and gay marriage are less politically central to Blacks, who at all education levels are more likely to be Democrat than the most Democrat identified Whites.