There are three things many people do not discuss candidly with strangers or mere acquaintances: God, sex, and politics. Such things they prefer to keep private. But these can easily become topics of fierce debate, particularly when taken together (cf. Bos and Derks 2016). In public discourses in varying national contexts, for example, religion and homosexuality are increasingly seen as each otherâs antitheses. One can observe this in public debates about same-sex marriage legislation, the 2017 Nashville Statement by the evangelical Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the Vaticanâs criticism of âgender ideology,â or Vladimir Putinâs ban on âgay propaganda,â as well as in the repeatedly asserted claim that the respective views of Western (white) citizens and (Muslim) immigrants on (homo)sexuality and gender equality are essentially incompatible. In this volume we suggest that constructions of religion and homosexuality are strongly interrelated in polarized debates, which are driven by political questions about national, cultural, religious, and sexual identities and differencesâand the recognition thereof. This volume investigates what is at stake in these constructions of religion and homosexuality in public discourses.
One of this volumeâs hypotheses is that the âdiscursive struggleâ over religion and homosexuality is connected to shifting lines and practices dividing what is understood as public and private in modern societies (e.g., Bracke 2008; Woodhead 2008). While in the West religion was once self-evidently present in the public domain, it is now often relegated to the private sphere; homosexuality, on the other hand, once a âmatter of the bedroom,â has become more visible (Seidman et al. 1999). The social and individual acceptance of homosexuality in Western countries has even become a prerequisite for claims to citizenship and belonging (Puar 2007; Dudink 2011; El-Tayeb 2012; Uitermark et al. 2014). This shift has occurred over a relatively brief period of time, and as of yet little is known about the role of specific national contexts and relevant institutions and movements in how religion and homosexuality are being constructed. A second hypothesis is that the âdiscursive struggleâ is connected to changing conceptualizations of âreligion,â ânon-religion,â and âsecularism.â Modern or secular notions of sexualityâemphasizing individual choice, mutual consent, and the fulfillment of everyoneâs needsâare based on liberal imperatives such as freedom, equality, and autonomy. It is often assumed that these differ fundamentally from traditional or religious notions of sexuality, which are believed to be based on conflicting values (e.g., Scott 2013; Korte 2014). This volume seeks to question the assumptions on which this representation of the current state of affairs is based, the conventions of religion, secularism, (homo)sexuality, and gender differences that are brought into play, and the social, cultural, and ethnic differences between (groups of) people that this oppositional pairing creates or affirms.
The examples of public debate mentioned above indicate that, particularly in
Europe, important shifts have taken place regarding the regulation and representation of
religion and
homosexuality: over the last two decades,
same-sex marriage legislation has been introduced in many European countries; more recently, the (originally American) Nashville Statement has been mobilized across
Europe; the
Vatican believes that â
gender ideologyâ has been developed in a
Europe that denies its Christian identity; Putin considers âgay propagandaâ a European threat to Russian values; and debates about
Islam and (homo)sexuality have been transformed and intensified with the recent problematization of migrants in
Europe originally from Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Middle East. These shifts indicate that the ways in which
religion and
homosexuality are related in different contexts are strongly connected to a struggle over the definition of a âproperâ European identity. According to the Pew Research Center (
2018), âfor most people living in the former Eastern bloc, being Christian (whether Catholic or Orthodox) is an important component of their national identity. In Western
Europe, by contrast, most people donât feel that
religion is a major part of their national identity.â Moreover,
majorities favor same-sex marriage in every Western European country surveyed, and nearly all of these countries have legalized the practice. Public sentiment is very different in Central and Eastern Europe, where majorities in nearly all countries surveyed oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. None of the Central and Eastern European countries surveyed allow same-sex marriages.
The many European states that have introduced same-sex marriage legislation believe that they are setting an example for other nations or continents, not only when it comes to secularization, as Grace Davie has argued in Europe: The Exceptional Case (Davie 2002), but also when it comes to homosexuality or sexual diversity (e.g., Ayoub 2016; Slootmaeckers et al. 2016). This discourse of a âhomoinclusive Europeâ (Kulpa 2014) can also be found in the dynamics of the European Union: taking a âprogressiveâ stance on homosexuality or sexual diversity and having solidified this juridically has become an important criterion for the possible admission of new member states, while it also has a critical function toward existing central and eastern European member states. This volume, therefore, focuses on Europe, yet this focus is not only geographical but also conceptual. What interests us is how constructions of a European identity function as objects of positive or negative identification in public discourses about homosexuality and religion in a particular context. For example, how do anti-Europeanist right-wing nationalists or Euro-skeptic left-wing globalists relate to LGBTI emancipation agendas? What is the discursive role of religion, particular religions, or secularism in these debates? Such questions are more central to some chapters than others.
The specific focus of this volume is on the discursive construction of religion, homosexuality, and national identity in public debates. This means that these chapters will not present the findings of sociological surveys about attitudes toward sexual diversity or qualitative research among (religious) LGBTI persons. At the same time, the debates that feature in these chapters do affect the lives of LGBTI and/or religious persons in important ways (cf. Derks 2019, 1), as some contributors to this volume also explicitly point out. We hope to come to a more comprehensiveâincluding a more intersectionalâunderstanding of the mechanisms underlying debates about religion and homosexuality. How are religious, sexual, and national or European âidentitiesâ constructed, and how do these constructions interrelate? How does âEuropeââor âthe Westââfigure in these debates as a means of (dis)identification? How do issues of race/ethnicity play out in debates in various contexts? In considering these questions, this volume shares some of the concerns and approaches that have engendered these studies but also offers, as we will argue, a distinct contribution of its own.
The volume is situated in a growing body of literature on public discourses about religion and (homo)sexuality in Europe, a selection of which we will briefly discuss here. As will become clear from this discussion, much of the important work to which we relate explores some combination of religion, homosexuality, and national identity, but seldom comprehensively and critically discusses religion, homosexuality, and national identity in a European context. For example, while the volume Christianity and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Europe (Carter Wood 2011) offers valuable insight into the role of religionâprimarily Christianityâin the construction of European national identities, it pays little attention to the role of debates about (homo)sexuality and gender in how Christianâor secularânational European identities are being constructed. The volume Religious Freedom and Gay Rights (Shah et al. 2016) does address questions of religion, nationality, and homosexuality, but focuses primarily on the Anglo-Saxon worldâthat is, the United Kingdom and the United States, with only three chapters on Continental Europe. Moreover, its concern is not necessarily an enhanced understanding of the ways in which religion, homosexuality, and national identity are co-co...
