Conditionally Accepted: Christians' Perspectives on Sexuality and Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights

By Baker A. Rogers

This book explores Mississippi Christians’ beliefs about homosexuality and gay and lesbian civil rights and whether having a gay or lesbian friend or family member influences those beliefs. Beliefs about homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights vary widely based on religious affiliation. Despite having gay or lesbian friends or family members, evangelical Protestants believe homosexuality is sinful and oppose gay and lesbian rights. Mainline Protestants are largely supportive of gay and lesbian rights and become more supportive after getting to know gay and lesbian people. Catholics describe a greater degree of uncertainty and a conditional acceptance of gay and lesbian rights; clear differences between conservative and liberal Catholics are evident. Overall, conservative Christians, both evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, hold a religious identity that overshadows their relationships with gay and lesbian friends or family. Conservative religion acts as a deterrent to the positive benefits of relationships with gay and lesbian people. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Release date: Dec 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781978805026

Book preview

Conditionally Accepted

Conditionally Accepted

Christians’ Perspectives on Sexuality and Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights

Baker A. Rogers

Rutgers University Press

New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rogers, Baker A., author.

Title: Conditionally accepted : Christians’ perspectives on sexuality and gay and lesbian civil rights / Baker A. Rogers.

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019010256 | ISBN 9781978805019 (hardback) | ISBN 9781978805002 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Homosexuality—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Sexual rights.

Classification: LCC BT708 .R564 2019 | DDC 233/.5—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010256

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2020 by Baker A. Rogers

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, N.J. 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

www.rutgersuniversitypress.org

I dedicate this work to all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise queer individuals who have struggled to accept themselves due to religious teachings and to all the religious leaders who stand for equality and love.

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Religion and Homosexuality

Chapter 1. God Said Love Thy Neighbor, Unless They’re Gay

Chapter 2. For the Bible (or My Pastor/Priest) Tells Me So: The Bible and Homosexuality

Part 2: Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights

Chapter 3. Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman? Support and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

Chapter 4. Do Children Need a Mom and a Dad? The Debate over Same-Sex Adoption

Chapter 5. All [Wo]men Are Created Equal, or Are They? The Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Movement

Part 3: Social Contact with Gay and Lesbian People

Chapter 6. Some of My Best Friends Are Gay: The Influence of Social Contact

Conclusion: When Religion Overshadows Relationships

Appendix: Methodology

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Introduction

Me: Hi. You completed a survey indicating that you would be willing to be interviewed. Are you still willing to complete an interview with me?

Regina (sixty-five-year-old white evangelical Protestant from the Mississippi Delta): You’re gay, right? I’ll do the interview if you think you can be objective.

In late September 2013, I traveled to the coast of Mississippi to complete my first round of interviews. Gulf Coast Nondenominational Church was a small tan structure; at the road, a small blue sign with three crosses announced that I arrived. I was led to the children’s nursery, where I was to conduct my interviews. The morning of the interviews, I went in early to set up, and I situated two rocking chairs: one for the participants and one for me. As I was getting my bearings, I noticed that directly in front of me the entire wall was painted with a scene of Noah’s Ark.¹ From one side of the painting to the other was a large rainbow, the symbolism of which was overwhelming. As I prepared to interview Christians about their attitudes and beliefs toward homosexuality² and gay and lesbian civil rights, I was faced by a symbol that has great meaning for both groups. For Christians, the rainbow is a symbol of hope—a symbol of God’s love and caring for them. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer (LGBTQ) individuals, the rainbow is a symbol of pride and unity. Despite the positive meanings of the rainbow for both groups, these symbols seemed worlds apart during my interviews at Gulf Coast Nondenominational Church. This particular church was not a place where the LGBTQ pride symbol would be welcomed or accepted. This church only welcomed gay and lesbian people with the goal of salvation from sin, particularly the sin of homosexuality. This was a place where gay and lesbian pride would be discouraged. The irony of this juxtaposition is where this story begins.

By the end of 2013, I had completed forty interviews with Mississippi Christians about their religious beliefs, their views about homosexuality, and their attitudes toward gay and lesbian civil rights.³ The interviewees, whose voices guide this book, represent various denominations and churches that span from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi to the Tennessee state line, and everywhere in between. The respondents identified with three distinct religious traditions: evangelical Protestantism, mainline Protestantism, and Catholicism. The history and beliefs of these distinct religious traditions guided the respondents in this book to very different conclusions about homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights today, making it necessary to discuss each tradition more fully before moving forward.

Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, and Catholics

Evangelical Protestantism, as we know it today, began in the 1920s and encompasses multiple Protestant denominations. Currently, about one out of every four Christians in the United States identifies as an evangelical Protestant (Pew Forum 2014). The hallmarks of evangelical Protestantism include the belief that the Bible does not contain errors, which often leads evangelicals to call for a literal interpretation of the Bible; the belief that salvation from sins comes only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; and the belief that it is a Christian’s duty to spread the Christian message (Bartkowski 2001, 2004). This means it is not a person’s works or good deeds that save them from their sinful nature and punishment; rather, a person gains salvation by accepting that Jesus died on the cross for them and only he can save them from their sinful nature. The belief in spreading the gospel, also known as evangelizing, is where evangelical Protestants break off from fundamentalist Protestants. Fundamentalists believe that their job as Christians is to live a good life and prepare for the End Times; they do not stress the importance of spreading the message of Christianity to others. All the conservative Protestants in this study felt they were called to spread the gospel, which classifies them as evangelicals rather than fundamentalists.

In contrast to evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants belong to churches and denominations that are more theologically liberal. These churches and denominations are less likely to take a literal interpretation of the Bible, less likely to believe that theology is objective fact, and more likely to minimize or erase the differences between Christianity and other religions⁴ (Smith et al. 1998). Overall, mainline Protestants seek to be accepting of differences and to emphasize a message of love and nonjudgment. This often means that mainline Protestants’ beliefs align more closely with secular society than those of other religious traditions.

Finally, Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination in the United States; its members account for approximately 29 percent of religiously affiliated people in the United States (Konieczny 2013). Unlike Protestants, both liberal and conservative Catholics remain a part of the same denomination. Despite a diversity of beliefs, Catholics do have a central set of theological tenets they hold as the core to Catholic identity (D’Antonio, Dillon, and Gautier 2013). For example, approximately 75 percent of Catholics believe that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is an important belief to them personally (D’Antonio et al. 2013). Nonetheless, Catholics appear to be moving away from a united front, as the majority of Catholics across the United States today do not feel that the teaching authority of the Vatican—the governing organization of the Catholic Church, led by the pope—is necessary for Catholic faith. The bulk of Catholics in the United States today believe that being a good Catholic is no longer dependent on adhering to the church’s authority or hierarchy, making them more liberal in theology (D’Antonio et al. 2013). Only about a quarter to a third of those who identify as Catholic accept the complete authority of the church. These more conservative Catholics continue to uphold the teachings of the Vatican.

The current pope, Pope Francis, is viewed as extremely liberal by many Catholics today. Pope Francis was elected on March 13, 2013, and made his first official statement about gay and lesbian people in September of 2013. Pope Francis has moved further and further away from overt condemnation of homosexuality and gay and lesbian civil rights. This is important to keep in mind when interpreting the Catholics’ responses in this study. Conservative Catholics who have historically upheld the church’s conservative teachings about sexuality may have been confused in 2013 as Pope Francis began to change the position of the Catholic Church on issues of sexuality.

In this study, I use conservative Christians to refer to both evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics. Generally, conservative Christians believe that either the Bible (evangelical Protestants) or the Vatican (Catholics) is the final authority on what is morally right and wrong. Based on biblical literalism or the authority of the Catholic Church, conservative Christians generally believe that homosexuality is sinful. On the contrary, more liberal Christians, both mainline Protestants and liberal Catholics, feel there is more room for interpretation of both the Bible and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Based on these more open beliefs, liberal Christians are more likely to believe that homosexuality is not sinful, or at least only sinful in certain situations. Overall, while all the respondents in this study identified as Christian, they told very different stories about their faith and God. Some believed in a vengeful God who is going to end the world due to human failings—especially the sins of gay and lesbian people. Others believed in a loving God who forgives and accepts all people. The one thing the majority of interviewees agreed on, regardless of their denomination, was that God is important in their lives and that they were sure they were doing what God would want them to.

The Interviewees

Most respondents in this study identified as white; in fact, only four out of the forty interviewees identified their race as black / African American, and no other races were represented in this sample. When it comes to religions, research shows that race matters; therefore, it is important to remember that most of this study considers the views of white Protestants and Catholics.⁵ Additionally, more women than men were willing to tell me about their beliefs. In total, twenty-eight interviewees identified as women, and twelve identified as men. Table 1 provides an overview of each interviewee, including demographic information, whether they have gay or lesbian friends or family members, and their stances on issues discussed throughout the book.

The interviewees for this study were selected from thirteen churches in Mississippi that agreed to participate in this study. Finding churches in Mississippi that would participate in a study about homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights was difficult, but a couple of pastors agreed to let me sample from their congregations and were able to recommend other pastors who would participate. It was hard to get my foot in the door, but once I did, I was able to use those connections to gain access to this community of Mississippi Christians. For more detailed information about my sampling and research methods, please see the appendix.

Table 1. Interview Sample Characteristics

The Location: Thank God for Mississippi

In the United States, there remains a substantial minority who continue to vehemently oppose equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens; the most vocal among these opponents are evangelical Protestants (Fetner 2001, 2008; Olson, Cadge, and Harrison 2006; Saucier and Cawman 2004; Sherkat, Powell-Williams, Maddox, and Mattias de Vries 2011). That opposition ranges from radical opponents—such as Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church, which pickets funerals of gay individuals and holds public protests with signs that read God hates fags and Death penalty for fags—to relatively more moderate Christian organizations such as Concerned Women for America, whose brochures promote traditional marriage between a man and a woman (Fetner 2001, 2008; Schreiber 2008). Despite this vocal minority, there has been a clear attitudinal shift toward acceptance of gay and lesbian rights in the United States over the past couple of decades. Nevertheless, the South has continued to stand out as a location with higher opposition to rights for gay and lesbian people.

The South provides fertile ground for studying Christianity and gay and lesbian civil rights. The South, and Mississippi in particular, is an exemplary location to conduct a study about the interactions of Christianity and support for gay and lesbian rights because of the higher rate of religious and political conservatism (Pew Forum 2014) and the state’s lack of supportive policies and legal protections for the gay and lesbian community. Located in the Deep South and the heart of the Bible Belt, Mississippi continues to be one of the most religiously and politically conservative states in the nation. According to the Pew Forum (2014), while only about 25 percent of those who identify as Christian in the United States identify as evangelical Protestant, in the South that number is 34 percent. In Mississippi, the percentage of evangelical Protestants rises to 41 percent (Pew Forum 2014). In contrast, Catholics constitute around 20 percent of Christians in the United States, while only 4 percent of Mississippians identify as Catholic (Pew Forum 2014).⁶

In addition to the conservative religious nature of the South, and largely due to this conservatism, the South is also a place of conservative political beliefs where gay and lesbian experiences are marginalized. This should not be surprising, considering that white evangelicals’ support of same-sex marriage remains the lowest of all religious traditions. Only 35 percent of evangelical Protestants support same-sex marriage today, compared to 67 percent of Catholics and 68 percent of mainline Protestants (Pew Forum 2017). Although the state must adhere to changing federal legislation in regards to gay and lesbian equality, the backlash against the expanding rights of gay and lesbian citizens and reactive policies in the state, such as religious freedom bills,⁷ make the relationship between religion and prejudice extremely clear. Specifically, these reactive laws and policies indicate that many Christians place their conservative religious beliefs above their relationships with gay and lesbian friends and family members.

One recent example of this backlash in Mississippi was House Bill 1523 (HB 1523), which Governor Phil Bryant signed on April 5, 2016. This legislation legalized discrimination in the state of Mississippi. House Bill 1523 ensured that state government would not punish individuals who refused to serve others on the basis of religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex, or transgender identities. In Bryant’s own words, HB 1523 was to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions . . . from discriminatory action by state government (Domonoske 2016). Bryant argued this bill does not limit the rights of any citizens, but rather merely reinforces the right to religious freedom. In essence, under the protection of law, Mississippians were provided the ability to deny services to LGBTQ individuals if their lifestyles⁸ violate the beliefs and convictions of a religious group (Tan 2016). Despite attempts to stop the legislation from taking effect, the bill became law on October 10, 2017.

Despite the religious and political conservatism of Mississippi, it is still home to many gay and lesbian people. One issue with framing the South, and specifically Mississippi, as a single-minded location where conservative Christianity reigns and gay and lesbian rights are a nonissue is that this view ignores the South as a location for the struggle for gay and lesbian equality. In fact, much of the invisibility of LGBTQ issues in the South is a direct result of the one-sided portrayal of the region.

Recent events in Mississippi show this caricature of the South is not the full story. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) opened a state office in Mississippi in 2014 to advocate for gay and lesbian equality across the state. The presence of the HRC in a Southern state indicates a move toward queer visibility in the South. On October 20, 2014, two same-sex couples filed the first federal challenge to the same-sex marriage ban in Mississippi. In the case, Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant, the district court judge ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry was unconstitutional (Freedom to Marry 2018a). To date, there are no nondiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people across the state of Mississippi, but some cities have begun to pass such legislation, including Jackson, the state’s capital, in July 2016.

The combination of conservative religion and the move toward gay and lesbian rights within the state of Mississippi make it an excellent context to explore the importance of having gay or lesbian friends or family in lending support for LGBTQ rights. The high correlation between evangelical Christianity and prejudice toward gay and lesbian people makes Mississippi a key battleground state for gay and lesbian civil rights. As Mississippi continues to move toward equality for gay and lesbian citizens, it is important to understand the barriers to gaining full equality.

Through this research, I provide a starting point for understanding the relationship between Christianity and sexuality in the South. This project answers the call for more qualitative research on the topic of Christianity and sexuality in order to flesh out more fully the explanations provided by men and women for their opinions towards various same-sex practices and rights (Perry and Whitehead 2016). In order to more fully understand Christians’ beliefs and attitudes toward homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights, readers must attempt to suspend judgments against gay and lesbian people or conservative Christians and to truly listen to what the interviewees in this study had to say. I begin by asking the basic questions to which our society typically assumes the answers: What do Mississippi Christians believe about homosexuality, and how do these beliefs vary based on religious affiliation? What do Mississippi Christians believe about gay and lesbian civil rights, and how do these beliefs vary based on religious affiliation? What influence does having a gay or lesbian friend or family member have on these beliefs and attitudes toward homosexuality and civil