The Role of Religion in Shaping Negative Views on Homosexuality

The Role of Religion in Shaping Negative Views on Homosexuality

Suzanne Groen

ABSTRACT

The intolerance towards gay people still is prevalent, and homosexuals do not yet share the same rights across the entire US. This study aims to improve the understanding of differences in disapproval of homosexuality across different states. How do religious people view homosexuality and how does this affect morality in general? Are non-religious people affected by their religious environment and how do schools and politics comply with religious norms? This paper examines the influence that religion has in shaping attitudes towards homosexuality. Unlike other cultural components, religion can be taught and often is interwoven within tradition. Religion comes with certain norms, which can by taught by socializing agents, such as schools, religious institutions and parents. Although, the extent to which a religion disapproves of homosexuality can vary extremely, Christianity, like most religions, does not approve of homosexuality in general. Since the majority of the US citizens share the Christian belief, this negative attitude might reflect on the public opinion. This might offer an explanation for why people from highly religious countries are likely to be more exposed to anti-homosexual norms than people from more secular countries. On the other hand, the degree to which people are involved in their religions might be of more value than the exact belief itself. When also looking at educational effects and national laws and policies, this paper comes to the conclusion that religion indeed can have a great influence on public opinion, education and laws, because of its norms and values.

Despite recent progress, intolerance towards gay people still is prevalent and the debate about human rights, the acceptability and legalization of homosexuality continues worldwide. There are still regions in the United States where homosexuals do not share the same rights as heterosexuals. For example, while nine states have legalized same sex marriage in the US, there are still many states where alterations of the state's constitution or laws ban gay marriage (Hertz & Doskow 2012). As Durkheim (1897), Vogt (1997) and Helie (2004) argue, factors contributing to intolerance of homosexuality are socializing agents, conservative schools and the religious culture; Helie claims that even people who are not personally religious, may be influenced by the norms of their religious environment (2004). In addition to this, Jelen and Wilcox argue that orthodox religious people tend to hold more limited attitudes on homosexuality (2003). As the majority of the population in the US is religious, this paper will examine to what extent Christianity promotes negative attitudes towards homosexuality.

Data collected by Pew Research Center in 2007 indicates that 83.1% of the American citizens have some sort of religious identity and 78.4% of those, share the Christian belief. (Pew 2007) The Christian religion is, considering the high percentages mentioned above, the main religion in the United States and therefore it could be very dominant in shaping moral attitudes and norms within society. Although Christianity is a very broad concept and attitudes towards homosexuals may strongly differ from one another within the Christian belief, fact remains that Christianity, like most religions, does not approve of homosexuality in general. This negative attitude towards homosexuality does not contribute to a tolerant environment and this belief might very well be reflected in the public opinion towards homosexuality in the United States. Therefore, it is of great importance to first gain an understanding of how religion affects morality and then focus on the conflict between religion and homosexuality.

Additionally, this paper will analyze to what extent Christianity influences the American culture in its intolerance towards homosexuality and how this may lead to discrimination. How do religious people view homosexuality and how does this affect morality in general? Previous studies done in Europe and the US mainly focused on the individual characteristics. However, to understand the differences in attitudes in various states, this paper will review studies that have formed a connection between religion and intolerance, not only on an individual level but also on a national level.

Before commencing to overview the individual characteristics, it is imperative for one to understand the true meaning of morality. Fay and Gordon (1989) made a useful distinction between 'moral and moralistic'. They described moral as: ''living by the higher moral code one espouses, as well as not infringing on the rights of others''; and moralistic as ''the intent to impose one's own moral code on others''(p. 211) In other words, we could say that moral stands are defined by the principals of democracy and in contrast, moralistic stands are undemocratic, as they depend on the contexts in which they are taken.

Morality is shaped by many factors in society, but previous research has indicated that religious beliefs are one of the strongest predicators for shaping moral attitudes, as it can be very judgemental of an individual's behaviour. (Olson et al. 2006, Shulte & Battle 2004, Burdette et al. 2005) Unlike other cultural components, religion can be taught and often is interwoven within tradition. (Altemeyer, 2001) This is crucial when trying to understand the relationship between religion and morality.

Religion is based on belief in the supernatural. The gods can be seen as a holy form of authority offering explanations for human behaviour and actions to make it more comprehensible. (Weber 1958) But yet it can work both ways. When something is not justified or explained by something as powerful as god, it can lead to disapproval, because people do not understand the unfamiliar. Although, the relationship between personal religiosity and moral attitudes might speak for themselves, the relationship between religion and behaviour is far more complex to understand.

The extent to which a religion disapproves of homosexuality can vary extremely. For example, according to the Islam, homosexuality is absolutely forbidden and unacceptable (Gerhards, 2010), while the Catholic doctrine makes a distinction between ''being homosexual'', which they consider not morally wrong, and ''acting homosexual'', which they consider immoral. However, conservative Protestants (CP) are likely to show the lowest level of acceptance towards homosexuality, as they belief in cosmic conflict, which ''encourages CP's