tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/gays-32677/articlesGays – The Conversation2022-06-26T08:25:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1855362022-06-26T08:25:02Z2022-06-26T08:25:02ZHomosexuality and Africa: a philosopher’s perspective<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470292/original/file-20220622-3417-rm7mnk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most African countries have tough anti-gay laws.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.rawpixel.com/search/gay%20pride?page=1&sort=curated">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most African countries are constitutional democracies that afford extensive rights and freedoms to their citizens, and safeguard their dignity. </p>
<p>It is arbitrary, to say the least, to exclude from these the right to express sexuality or gender identity. But opponents of homosexuality would like to do just that. They often invoke “public interest”, “protection of community” and “morals” to violate the dignity of homosexuals. </p>
<p>Ghana’s <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Ghana_1996.pdf">current constitution</a>, for example, is widely hailed as an inspiring model of a state’s observance of these freedoms. Yet, on 29 June 2021, The <a href="https://cdn.modernghana.com/files/722202192224-0h830n4ayt-lgbt-bill.pdf">Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021</a> was introduced in parliament. It aims to promote “proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values, and proscribe the promotion of and advocacy for LGBTQ+ practice”. </p>
<p>The bill’s supporters claim to be motivated by religious and cultural values and ideals. The <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/05/13/more-name/state-sponsored-homophobia-and-its-consequences-southern-africa">trend</a> of the discussion of homosexuality in Africa since the 1980s suggests that this view is not uniquely Ghanaian, and that homosexuality nags at the conscience of Africans.</p>
<p>From religious perspectives, homosexuality is problematic because it is sinful, and sinful because it offends against God’s will. Several theologians deny this.</p>
<p>But whether or not religions condemn same-sex relationships, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/05568641.2022.2035248">my position</a> is that in many African societies the problem has to do less with sinfulness than with an existential and moral commitment. </p>
<p>To put it more plainly, I believe that many people oppose homosexuality because they feel they have a culturally sanctioned moral commitment to have children. And that commitment stems from the ultimate goal of promoting community welfare. In my view, this is a value which can accommodate same-sex relationships and protect homosexual people. </p>
<h2>Culture and nature</h2>
<p>I start by accepting that being African is a culturally distinct mode of being. I mean merely that certain values are more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than in other geographical locations. I don’t mean that all Africans share one culture. And African cultures evolve all the time. I also start from the position that a person does not choose to be gay. </p>
<p>Being gay in Africa can pose culturally specific problems which the dominant, heterosexual culture may find hard to accept. But I think African culture can also offer a solution to this nonacceptance – a moral theory that allows people to embrace both their sexual being and their cultural being. Being gay and being African need not be seen as a contradiction.</p>
<p>First let’s look at the dominant African culture I’m talking about. </p>
<p>In African societies, an important factor in anti-gay agitation is the moral weight assigned to having children, and emphasis on heterosexual intercourse as a way to achieving this. Procreation ensures continuation of biological heritage, through which the history of society unfolds. </p>
<p>Hence raising children and contributing to a lineage is upheld as a vitally important good for community. In this way, biological reproduction through heterosexual sex becomes a moral responsibility. </p>
<p>To write off the preference for heterosexuality as pre-modern and as biased against homosexuals is insulting and unimaginative. Rather than condemning this preference, it’s more productive to find a way for culture to make room for homosexuality. </p>
<p>Some people describe homosexuality as “unnatural”, “anti-social” or “un-African”. This is not true. Several studies, including <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/83859">one</a> on 50 societies in every region of the continent, decisively support the conclusion that homosexual relationships constitute “a consistent and logical feature of African societies and belief systems.”</p>
<p>The argument that same-sex practice is unnatural because it violates human nature also overlooks the fact that sexuality is a natural feature of human beings. Sexuality is part of what it is to be human. To be human is to be a sexually oriented being. </p>
<p>The tendency in Africa to relegate sexuality to a relatively minor part of human life – to the drive to procreate – tends to treat homosexual expressions as inappropriate. But sexual orientation is central to every person’s entire sense of self, and not just to a small part of it which can be lopped off or put on hold at will.</p>
<p>Accepting the centrality of a person’s sexual orientation to their humanity has significant moral implications which do not square with the existential and moral commitments of African societies I’ve described. </p>
<p>Opponents of homosexuality put more emphasis on the duty to have children, and overlook a deeper value, that of building and sustaining community. They gloss over the role that homosexuals can play in achieving the latter task. </p>
<h2>A moderate communitarian solution</h2>
<p>My view is that the rights of homosexuals can be better protected by an African moral theory than by the standard constitutional safeguards.</p>
<p>The African moral theory that can achieve this is the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye’s “<a href="https://science.jrank.org/pages/8772/Communitarianism-in-African-Thought-Gyekye-on-Moderate-Communitarianism.html">moderate communitarianism</a>.” This theory holds that an action is intrinsically good if it serves the communal good – namely “<a href="https://science.jrank.org/pages/8772/Communitarianism-in-African-Thought-Gyekye-on-Moderate-Communitarianism.html">the social conditions</a> that will enable each individual to function satisfactorily in a human society.” </p>
<p>Moderate communitarianism gives equal value to what is good for individuals and what is good for community – as long as individuals and community serve and protect each other’s value and dignity. </p>
<p>From this perspective, homosexual people contribute to the communal good. If what you are is not a matter of choice, and sexuality is part of who you are, then it is morally unjustifiable to consider a homosexual person as incapable of contributing to the common good just because of their sexuality.</p>
<p>Under moderate communitarianism, simply having children is not enough to make you a moral person. It would not be moral to have children and abandon your responsibility to guide these children to acquire virtues that promote communality and human flourishing.</p>
<p>And there are other ways to replenish community. The moderate communitarian acknowledges that heterosexual sex is not the only way to reproduce. For example, there is surrogate parenthood and sperm donation for artificial insemination. Community and human life can also flourish through adopting children in need of parenting or supporting those in need. </p>
<p>A moral person, under this philosophy, is one who cherishes communal relationships and virtues, and whose conduct adds to the communal stock of good. Not bearing children, in itself, cannot count as immoral.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Odei Ajei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being gay in Africa can pose culturally specific challenges which the dominant, heterosexual culture may find difficult to accept.Martin Odei Ajei, Associate Professor of Philosophy , University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1152112019-05-08T10:13:21Z2019-05-08T10:13:21ZHarsh punishments under Sharia are modern interpretations of an ancient tradition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272565/original/file-20190503-103082-15qu5ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, one of the landmarks in Brunei. Brunei recently announced punishing gay sex by stoning offenders to death.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brunei-Sharia-Law/b31b0762904e4cc8ae84f741a2335dda/2/0">AP Photo/Vincent Thian</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Brunei introduced death by stoning for homosexuals under its Islamic law, or Sharia, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html">condemnation</a> from human rights organizations and others was swift. Recently, the country backed down under mounting international pressure, saying it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/world/asia/brunei-gays-stoning-execution.html">would not carry out executions</a> under the new law. The sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As evident for more than two decades, we have practiced a de facto moratorium on the execution of death penalty for cases under the common law.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And this, he added would also be applied to cases under the Sharia penal code.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, homosexuals in Brunei are still subject to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/05/asia/brunei-lgbt-death-penalty-intl/index.html">penalties</a> such as whipping and amputation. </p>
<p>Is Brunei’s law an accurate reflection of Sharia?</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1057944">scholar</a> of law and religion, I would argue that Sharia is not one thing: It is a complex tradition with multiple interpretations – one that accommodates the celebration of same-sex attraction alongside rulings condemning homosexual intercourse. </p>
<h2>Different views</h2>
<p>Starting in the early medieval period, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3YvEt3PxmAcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hallaq+sharia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJy7W0jfvhAhUjMX0KHW6TDZMQ6AEINjAC#v=onepage&q=hallaq%20sharia&f=false">Sharia</a> developed as a sprawling corpus of texts and sources of authority that were often quite independent of the state.</p>
<p>Over the centuries, jurists of Islamic law have reached different decisions about what the tradition mandates in a particular case. Within Sunni Islam, four different <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/madhhab-SIM_8798?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=madhhab">schools</a> have agreed to disagree about everything from criminal law to ritual observance. Shia Muslims have their own school of Islamic law. </p>
<p>Take, for instance, Muslim jurists’ approach to <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/liwat-SIM_4677?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=liwat">anal intercourse</a> between two men. The Quran offers only a general condemnation, with no specific legal consequences. There are some sources in the Hadith – the vast corpus of sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and collected centuries after his death – that are more specific, including condemning those convicted of anal intercourse to death.</p>
<p>Some schools of Islamic law – such as the Shafii school, which is predominant in Brunei – classify sodomy as a type of <a href="https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/zina-or-zina-SIM_8168?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=zina">fornication</a>, which requires the death penalty. </p>
<p>But others, such as the Hanafi school, which was the official school of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9cTHyUQoTyUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hanafi+law+ottoman+empire&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyrvmNkvvhAhXSLH0KHfvrDqgQ6AEIXzAJ#v=onepage&q=hanafi%20law%20ottoman%20empire&f=false">Ottoman Empire</a>, prescribe far lighter penalties for this act. The Hanafi school is still one of the most widespread in the Islamic world, including in Turkey, the Balkans, South Asia and Central Asia.</p>
<p>And even in those schools of Islamic law that prescribe the death penalty for anal intercourse, jurists have made the standard of proof so high as to be nearly impossible to meet. </p>
<p>To condemn someone for sodomy requires four male, Muslim witnesses to have had such an intimate view of the act that they could see the genitals of the offenders. All schools of law require this type of evidence to condemn someone for fornication. Needless to say, such proof was exceedingly hard to come by. </p>
<h2>Celebrating same-sex attraction</h2>
<p>Moreover, as scholar <a href="https://nelc.fas.harvard.edu/people/khaled-el-rouayheb">Khaled El-Rouayheb</a> has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=undbSDztxVMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=khaled+el-rouayheb+homosexuality&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiLnbDYjvvhAhVFlFQKHRmXBMkQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=khaled%20el-rouayheb%20homosexuality&f=false">argued</a>, while jurists might have condemned sodomy, they also celebrated homoeroticism, that is, erotic love between members of the same sex.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272568/original/file-20190503-103082-1ie3ijg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque and University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cairo_-_Islamic_district_-_Al_Azhar_Mosque_and_University_front.JPG">Daniel Mayer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 18th century, Abdallah al-Shabrawi, the rector of al-Azhar in Cairo – then, as now, one of the Islamic world’s most prestigious centers of religious learning – was known both as a scholar and a poet. Al-Shabrawi dedicated a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=undbSDztxVMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=khaled+el-rouayheb+homosexuality&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj36aj34__hAhXo0FQKHXx7DQoQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=khaled%20el-rouayheb%20homosexuality&f=false">love poem</a> to his male student, and wrote many others celebrating young men.</p>
<p>As scholars of Ottoman history and literature <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/walter/">Walter Andrews</a> and <a href="http://mehmetkalpakli.com/">Mehmet Kalpaklı</a> have shown, Ottoman sexuality was in many ways like that of ancient Greece and Rome. Far from stigmatizing men who sexually desired other men, young boys were often considered <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jID6Z1l0IfEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=andrews+kalpakli+age+of+beloveds&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidlNrh5v_hAhVLs1QKHT9jA04Q6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=andrews%20kalpakli%20age%20of%20beloveds&f=false">more perfect objects of desire and love</a> than women.</p>
<p>Celebrations of same-sex love did not flout Islamic law. Rather, love for another man was considered widely acceptable even by jurists, as long as one avoided the sin of sodomy.</p>
<h2>Islamism and Sharia</h2>
<p>The interpretation of Sharia that originally guided the recent laws in Brunei is not a straightforward revival of an ancient tradition. </p>
<p>On the contrary, this interpretation is related to a particularly modern approach to Islamic law, one that is typical of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2hxmm2N6jOgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=introduction+to+islamism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1osCHkPvhAhUcJzQIHez0CBkQ6AEIPDAD#v=onepage&q=introduction%20to%20islamism&f=false">Islamism</a>. Islamism is an approach to Islam and the Sharia that arose in the 20th century across the Muslim world. Among its best-known example is the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ltVtj3Kh7IIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Richard+P.+Mitchell,+The+Society+of+the+Muslim+Brothers&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj18-rI5ofiAhUHsFQKHeB3AjAQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Richard%20P.%20Mitchell%2C%20The%20Society%20of%20the%20Muslim%20Brothers&f=false">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, which originated in Egypt and argued, for instance, that Sharia was indispensable to a vibrant Muslim community.</p>
<p>Today, many Islamist political parties point to a revival of the Sharia as a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CE_sgHj4k0EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=noah+feldman+the+fall+and+rise+of+the+islamic+state&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivtajQ5__hAhWmwFQKHZ7BDBoQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=noah%20feldman%20the%20fall%20and%20rise%20of%20the%20islamic%20state&f=false">political solution</a> to the problems plaguing Muslim-majority societies, including corruption and inequality. </p>
<p>However, there are many different viewpoints even among those linked with Islamism. For example, the Egyptian Islamist group al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ieflBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=jackson,+S.+A.+(2015).+Initiative+to+Stop+the+Violence:+Sadat%27s+Assassins+and+the+Renunciation+of+Political+Violence&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwpq6M5IfiAhXIr1QKHbDnDPgQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q&f=false">renounces violence</a>. On the other end of the spectrum is the Islamic State, which has taken up perhaps the most extreme version of a violent interpretation of Islamism. </p>
<p>In spite of these differences, many Islamists share the belief that Sharia is a way to harken back to an authentic Islam free of the corruption that is perceived to come from the West. </p>
<h2>Pre-colonial Sharia</h2>
<p>In fact, Sharia was not usually the primary source of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7EAsmttzXjcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=criminal+law+islamic+world&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDr96ukPvhAhXNIzQIHbkcAqwQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=criminal%20law%20islamic%20world&f=false">criminal law</a> in the pre-modern period.</p>
<p>Rather, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3YvEt3PxmAcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hallaq+sharia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJy7W0jfvhAhUjMX0KHW6TDZMQ6AEINjAC#v=onepage&q=hallaq%20sharia&f=false">Sharia courts</a> focused more on regulating issues such as contracts, debts, marriage, divorce, mortgages and other everyday matters of civil law. This was in part because the Sharia required such high standards of proof for crimes as to make conviction nearly impossible.</p>
<p>My own <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WqIqDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=marglin+across+legal+lines&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuqqGuj_vhAhXLwlQKHUIUBmMQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=marglin%20across%20legal%20lines&f=false">research</a> on law in pre-colonial Morocco shows that everyone – Muslims and Jews alike – used Sharia courts, which were mostly concerned with making sure that debtors paid their debts.</p>
<h2>Sharia stereotypes</h2>
<p>The way in which Sharia is codified and enforced by the state in a place like Brunei bears little resemblance to the way it functioned when al-Shabrawi was rector of al-Azhar.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272570/original/file-20190503-103057-142gr37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some countries use a harsh interpretation of Sharia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Indonesia-Aceh-Islamic-Law/59b08543977f4195b246cd0048ee9f65/2/0">AP Photo/Heri Juanda, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To many Americans, Sharia has become synonymous with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-sharia/2016/06/24/7e3efb7a-31ef-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.962edfb45af4">harsh punishments</a> and intolerance. This is a misunderstanding of Islamic law, both as it functioned historically and as it informs the daily lives of millions of Muslims today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Marglin is affiliated with the Democratic party. </span></em></p>Some Islamic nations, including Brunei, have harsh punishments under Sharia. In pre-modern times, Sharia was rarely used as criminal law, and standard of proof for any prosecution was very high.Jessica Marglin, Associate Professor of Religion, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1155172019-04-22T19:13:34Z2019-04-22T19:13:34ZHow pop culture has become a refuge for queer children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269348/original/file-20190415-147522-k5w7pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C11%2C1595%2C1046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still from Xavier Dolan's film _The Death and Life of John F. Donovan._</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-229189/photos/detail/?cmediafile=21593012">Shayne Laverdière/Allociné</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2013, during the French protests against marriage equality, queer philosopher Paul Préciado asked, in an article for <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/01/14/qui-defend-l-enfant-queer_873947"><em>Libération</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Who will defend the rights of children who are different? The rights of the little boy who likes to wear pink? Of the little girl who dreams of marrying her best girlfriend? Of queer, fag, dyke, transsexual and transgender children? Who will defend the right of a child to switch genders if they want to? The right for children to freely determine their own sexuality and gender? Who will defend children’s right to grow up in a world without sexual or gendered violence?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Xavier Dolan’s 2019 film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPmS8Iu432E"><em>The Death and Life of John F. Donovan</em></a>, released mid-March in France, reminded me of these words. The film talks about the importance of popular culture and its impact on queer youth, those who feel excluded by society’s rigidly defined gender norms.</p>
<p>Victims of <a href="https://www.cjcmh.com/doi/abs/10.7870/cjcmh-2011-0014">physical violence and verbal harassment</a> (bullying), such youth often find escape from the un-amiable world in popular culture – series, music, magazines, comics and more.</p>
<h2>The story of Rupert Turner</h2>
<p>The film revolves around the correspondence between John F. Donovan, an actor in a hit American series, and Rupert Turner, a young student who has just moved to the suburbs of London with his mother after his parents’ divorce.</p>
<p>The story is set in the early 2000s, a time when American TV series began to exert great influence over youth culture worldwide.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HPmS8Iu432E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer, <em>The Death and Life of John F. Donovan</em>.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This unorthodox friendship is shown largely through the eyes of young Rupert, who is bullied by his peers at school but holds fast. He finds resilience in his friendship with the actor, and in the series. But he also finds strength in his outlandish hope of, one day, acting side by side with Donovan. While it is never explicitly stated that he is in love with Donovan (and does it really matter?), Rupert finds the strength to subvert the gender norms that imprison boys and girls in stereotyped roles.</p>
<p>Rupert is a fugitive from reality. For years he maintained an active correspondence with a Hollywood actor, which is no small feat. His overactive imagination stimulates the real world. He lives differently; he’s not like other children. Rupert is a queer child.</p>
<h2>A poetic world</h2>
<p>Queer children show us the way; they break through boundaries. They are imagining a new world, different from the gender and sexual conformity all children are subjected to – a poetic world, <a href="http://knowledgepublic.pbworks.com/w/page/13684599/Michael%20Warner">in the words of Michael Warner</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267587/original/file-20190404-123400-lo5txc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from <em>My Life in Pink</em> by Alain Berliner.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the beginning of the film, when Rupert starts to watch the latest season of Donovan’s series, his euphoria recalls the outpouring of longing experienced by all children who do not fit in. To paraphrase Judith Butler, it is the performative act of an <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/mots/736">alternative masculinity</a>.</p>
<p>Oppressed in the ordinary institutional contexts that govern their lives (school, family, religion, peer socialization, etc.), queer children create imaginary worlds, fantasize, invent new languages and imaginary friends, rebuild the world and come up with their own ideal society. They are able to do so precisely because of their own excesses, the ways in which they transgress gender norms.</p>
<h2>Anna Vissi, Greek pop star, guardian angel</h2>
<p>I too was once like Rupert. At six, I idolized Greek pop icon Anna Vissi. She introduced her country to new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-b6axWgZzg">musical styles, mixing western pop with eastern rhythms</a>, and gave spectacular concerts in Athens. She was <em>the</em> pop super star of the 1990s and early 2000s. I bought her CDs, danced to her clips, imagined myself singing her songs – alone or with her, for her. Vissi enabled me to live, helped heal my psychological wounds when my classmates called me a “fag”.</p>
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<p>I went as far as to apply for a game show that granted viewers’ wishes, asking to meet her. When sexist rumors began to circulate about her, accusing her of “perverted” sexual practices, I stood up for her, knowing that, one day, those same words would be applied to me.</p>
<p>During my school years, I suffered casual abuse for reasons that were never explained (though I knew very well). My parents and friends turned a blind eye – even though my mother taught at my school – but Anna Vissi was always there for me. She was my companion and support through those years.</p>
<p>When I began moving in other circles, and rubbing shoulders with the <a href="http://socio.ens-lyon.fr/cours/methodes/methodes_fiches_bourdieu_passeron_1964_benquet.pdf">intellectual “inheritors”</a>, students of the universities where I studied – private school students all, and well versed in “real” musical culture – I hid my admiration for Vissi. She was too commercial, too lowbrow, too different from the artistic icons recognised by the standard-bearers of heterocentric bourgeois culture who dictated what I should be listening to be one of them.</p>
<p>But I didn’t want to be one of them. I wanted to get away from them just as I wanted to get away from my family. There was no place for me in my family or in the “hetero intellectual bourgeoisie”. Anna Vissi showed me the way, without speechifying, without taboos or limits. She was always there for me: when I went to the opera, when I started amateur theatre, when I read Genet. I may have turned my back on her, but she never did.</p>
<h2>Imagining new roles to survive</h2>
<p>Dolan’s film speaks to all queer people, to all those who do not fit into predefined, imposed gender roles, to those who dream of a different world and want to make it a reality. More than simple dreamers, queer children are actually <a href="https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462982741/queer-festivals">building the world they want to live in, here and now</a>.</p>
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<p>In a world where culture crosses national borders, we can dream up new kinds of masculinity and femininity through new hybrid models, and fall in love with new pop icons who open the way for new constructions of desire and new possibilities.</p>
<p>Rupert eventually grows up and finds his way. Unfortunately, such is not always the case for queer youth. To become adults, children – queer or not – must first survive, using strategies and alliances, occasionally with friends or family members, but sometimes with their own John F. Donovan or Anna Vissi.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Konstantinos Eleftheriadis is the author of the book “Queer festivals: Challenging collective identities in a transnational Europe” (Amsterdam University Press, 2018).</em></p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast ForWord</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Konstantinos Eleftheriadis received funding from the Greek Scholarship Foundation (IKY) between 2010 and 2013, and another doctoral scholarship from the European University Institute (2013-2014)</span></em></p>In pop culture such as series, music, magazines and comics, queer children often find ways out of a world that cannot contain them.Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, Teaching fellow en sociologie, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015042018-09-04T10:34:41Z2018-09-04T10:34:41ZWhy Putin is an ally for American evangelicals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234328/original/file-20180830-195310-mfbxze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a mass in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Russia, on Jan. 7, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on April 6, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-in-ukraine-is-testing-some-american-evangelicals-support-for-putin-as-a-leader-of-conservative-values-180638">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The close relationship between American evangelicals and Russia has lately been <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/unexpected-relationship-between-us-evangelicals-and-russian-orthodox">discussed widely</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2018/02/23/why-billy-graham-went-to-russia">in the news media</a>. In particular, the Justice Department <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/opinion/maria-butina-putin-infiltration.html">unsealed a criminal complaint</a> in July against a Russian woman, Maria Butina, for trying to use the National Prayer Breakfast, a star-studded affair, as a “back channel of communication” with prominent <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/how-russia-became-a-leader-of-the-worldwide-christian-right-214755">American religious and political leaders</a>.</p>
<p>Among them is Franklin Graham, son of the well-known evangelist, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-billy-grahams-legacy-lives-on-in-american-life-92229">Billy Graham</a>, and head of the influential <a href="https://billygraham.org/">Billy Graham Evangelistic Association</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, Graham famously visited Russia, where he had a warm meeting with President Vladimir Putin. On that trip, Putin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-republican-right-found-allies-in-russia/2017/04/30/e2d83ff6-29d3-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.bb42f0bd95a3">reportedly explained</a> that his mother had kept her Christian faith even under communist rule. Graham in turn <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/franklin-graham-praises-gay-propaganda-law-critizes-us-secularism-in-russia-visit/">praised Putin</a> for his support of Orthodox Christianity, contrasting Russia’s “positive changes” with the rise of atheistic secularism in the U.S. </p>
<p>But it was not always so. Once upon a time, American evangelicals saw the Soviet Union and other communist countries as the world’s greatest threat to their faith. </p>
<p>They carried out dramatic and illegal activities, smuggling Bibles and other Christian literature across borders. And yet, today, Russia is their crucial ally. </p>
<h2>Bible smuggling</h2>
<p>Starting in the 1950s, but intensifying in the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. and European evangelicals presented themselves as intimately linked to the Christians who were suffering at the hands of communist governments. </p>
<p>One evangelical group that emerged at this time was <a href="https://www.opendoorsusa.org/">“Open Doors,”</a> whose main aim was to work for “persecuted Christians,” around the world. It was founded by <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1995/december11/5te045.html">“Brother Andrew” Vanderbijl</a>, a Dutch pastor who smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. </p>
<p>Brother Andrew and other evangelicals argued that what Christians in communist countries really needed was Bibles – an <a href="https://www.nae.net/evangelical-beliefs-research-definition/">evangelical view</a> of the centrality of personal Bible reading for the sustenance of the faithful. And Bibles were hard to come by. In 1978, Time magazine <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947040,00.html">reported</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A Christian’s chances of buying a Bible openly are currently good in Poland, erratic in East Germany, difficult in Czechoslovakia and Hungary…, extremely difficult in Rumania, virtually impossible in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. Buying a Bible is an out-and-out crime in Albania.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He turned the smuggling into anti-communist political theater. As he headed toward the border in a specially outfitted vehicle with a hidden compartment that might hold as many as 3,000 Bibles, he prayed. According <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&">to one ad</a> that ran in Christian magazines, he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Lord, in my luggage I have forbidden Scriptures that I want to take to your children across the border. When you were on earth, you made blind eyes see. Now I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see these things you do not want them to see.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Vanderbijl’s memoir, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Ssj2txmMyqgC&dq=God%27s+Smuggler&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEkK-K74jdAhVHhuAKHQDdALIQ6AEIOTAC">“God’s Smuggler,”</a> became a bestseller when it was published in 1967.</p>
<h2>Taking Jesus to communist world</h2>
<p>By the early 1970s, there were more than 30 Protestant organizations engaged in some sort of literature smuggling, and there was an intense, sometimes quite nasty, competition between groups. </p>
<p>Their work <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&">depended on their charismatic leaders</a>, who often used sensationalist approaches for fundraising. </p>
<p>For example, in 1966, a Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Internal Security subcommittee, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/07/archives/cleric-tells-of-communist-torture.html">stripped to the waist</a> and turned to display his deeply scarred back. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234331/original/file-20180830-195325-oktql7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rev. Richard Wurmbrand stands stripped to the waist to show scars of torture, as he testifies to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Henry Griffin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A Jewish convert and Lutheran minister, Wurmbrand had been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/mar/16/guardianobituaries.stephenbates">imprisoned twice</a> by the Romanian government for his activities as an “underground” minister before he finally escaped to the West in 1964. </p>
<p>Standing shirtless before U.S. senators and the national news media, Wurmbrand <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/07/archives/cleric-tells-of-communist-torture.html">testified</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My body represents Romania, my country, which has been tortured to a point that it can no longer weep. These marks on my body are my credentials.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The next year, Wurmbrand published his book, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Tortured_for_Christ.html?id=BdSfAAAAMAAJ">“Tortured for Christ,”</a> which became a bestseller in the U.S. He founded his own activist organization, <a href="https://blogs.brown.edu/hallhoag/2014/11/19/jesus-to-the-communist-world/">“Jesus to the Communist World,”</a> which also engaged in a good bit of attention-grabbing, intentionally reckless behavior. </p>
<p>In May 1979, for example, two 32-year-old men associated with the group flew their small plane over the Cuban coast, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&">dropping 6,000 copies of a pamphlet</a> written by Wurmbrand. After the “Bible bombing,” they lost their way in a storm and were forced to land in Cuba, where they were arrested and sentenced to 24 years in jail. </p>
<p>They served 17 months before being released in a general pardon of Americans in Cuban jails. </p>
<p>As I describe in my book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&">“The Kingdom of God Has No Borders,”</a> critics hammered these groups for such provocative approaches and hardball fundraising. One leading figure in the Southern Baptist Convention complained that the practice of smuggling Bibles was “creating problems for the whole Christian witness” in communist areas. </p>
<p>Another Christian activist, however, admitted that the activist groups’ mix of faith and politics was hard to beat and had the ability to draw “big bucks.” Indeed, as Time estimated, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947040,00.html">Bible smuggling groups raised US$30 million a year</a> in the late 1970s – a bit over $100 million today. </p>
<h2>After communism: Islam and homosexuality</h2>
<p>These days, there is little in the way of swashbuckling adventure to be had in confronting communists. But that does not mean an end to the evangelical focus on persecuted Christians.</p>
<p>After 1989, advocates increasingly <a href="https://www.merip.org/mer/mer249/politics-persecution">focused on Islam</a> as the greatest supposed threat to Christians. That is one of the reasons, I believe, that <a href="http://yris.yira.org/essays/1148">Putin’s war against Chechen militants</a> in the 1990s, and then his more recent intervention <a href="https://institute.global/insight/co-existence/defender-faith-russias-holy-war-syria">on behalf of Assad’s government in Syria</a>, made him popular with Christian conservatives: They believed Putin was protecting Christians while waging war against Islamic terrorism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234329/original/file-20180830-195319-x1g9lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin Graham.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Bazemore</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even Putin’s current policies of cracking down on evangelism do not seem to bother some of his conservative evangelical allies overly. When Putin signed a Russian law in June 2016 that <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/june/no-evangelizing-outside-of-church-russia-proposes.html">outlawed</a> any sharing of one’s faith in homes, online or anywhere else but recognized church buildings, some evangelicals were outraged, but others looked away.</p>
<p>This is in part because of his claim to be “<a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/july-august/mideast-christians-see-russia-not-us-as-defender-of-their-f.html">defender of Christians</a>,” but also because he is seen to be a partner in upholding conservative values on <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-american-conservatives-love-anti-gay-putin">opposing LGBTQ+ rights</a> and nontraditional views of the family. Franklin Graham was among those who waxed enthusiastically about Russia’s <a href="https://www.advocate.com/world/2015/11/03/evangelist-franklin-graham-loves-putins-antigay-policies">laws against “gay propaganda.</a>” Other lesser known activists have been <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/history-of-christian-fundamentalists-in-russia-and-the-us-a6bdd326841d/">cultivating ties</a> with Russian politicians as well as the Russian Orthodox Church.</p>
<p>In the 21st century, then, evangelical conservatives aren’t promoting their agenda by touting the number of Bibles transported across state lines, but rather on another kind of border crossing: the power of Putin’s reputation as a leader in the resurgent global Right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melani McAlister does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the Cold War, American evangelicals smuggled Bibles and other Christian literature to the Soviet Union and other communist countries. They still see Russia as a partner on evangelical values.Melani McAlister, Professor of American Studies and International Affairs, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/975252018-06-04T10:41:07Z2018-06-04T10:41:07ZHow the American Bible Society became evangelical<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221380/original/file-20180601-142083-1kaa34z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth chats with Eric North, secretary of the American Bible Society, during a visit to the organization’s headquarters in New York City on Oct. 28, 1954.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Lindsay</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.americanbible.org/">American Bible Society</a>, an organization that for over 200 years has been on a mission of distributing Bibles, has produced a statement of faith and lifestyle expectations that must be signed by all employees. The statement, which the ABS is calling an “Affirmation of Biblical Community,” requires employees to embrace a host of Christian beliefs and practices, including that marriage is between a man and a woman. </p>
<p>Many gay ABS employees have already <a href="https://religionnews.com/2018/05/29/american-bible-society-to-require-regular-church-attendance-strict-sexuality-codes/">left the organization</a>. Others are planning to leave because they do not feel comfortable working in an environment that opposes gay marriage. For Christians around the world, the American Bible Society represents a highly influential organization. With an <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/05/american-bible-society-is-a-nonprofit-rarity.html">annual budget</a> of US$100 million and <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/05/american-bible-society-is-a-nonprofit-rarity.html">revenues</a> of over $369 million, it is one of the largest religious nonprofits in the world. Its <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">goal</a> is to translate the Bible into every human language by 2025.</p>
<p>There is nothing unusual with a religious organization making employees sign a statement of faith or requiring them to practice certain behavior that fits with the teachings of historic Christianity. Christian ministries and colleges, for example, do this as a matter of course. </p>
<p>But the fact that the ABS has decided to adopt such a statement after functioning for 202 years without one does make this development noteworthy. As the <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=2jINg1YAAAAJ">author</a> of perhaps the only <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">scholarly history</a> of this storied Christian organization, I can attest that the “Affirmation of Biblical Community” represents a definitive break with the vision of its founders. </p>
<p>It also represents the culmination of a roughly 20-year transformation of the Society from a diverse Christian organization to a ministry with strong ties to American evangelicalism.</p>
<h2>History of distributing Bibles</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221383/original/file-20180601-142072-1x6kv3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man reading today’s English version of the New Testament, written in plain, everyday English, in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">Early 19-century Bible societies</a>, such as the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society, were service organizations. The American Bible Society published Bibles for churches and other ministries and allowed religious organizations to use them as they saw fit in the context of their particular denominational beliefs.</p>
<p>They were not in the business of interpreting the Bible for their constituencies.</p>
<p>For example, in 1835, the British Baptist Mission in Calcutta, India, appealed to the ABS for help in funding a translation of the New Testament into the Bengali language. ABS refused to fund the project because the translators of the Bengali Bible translated “baptizo” – the Greek word for “baptism” – in a way that preferred the Baptist practice of completely immersing new converts in a body of water over other forms of baptism, such as the sprinkling of babies.</p>
<p>In this case, the ABS reaffirmed its commitment to publishing the Bible “without note or comment” and reminded the British Baptist Mission that it was not in the business of promoting “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">local feelings, party prejudices” and “sectarian jealousies</a>.”</p>
<p>Through much of its history, ABS measured success not in terms of conversions or changed lives, but in terms of “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">tonnage</a>” – the amount of Bibles distributed around the world each year. </p>
<h2>Becoming more evangelical</h2>
<p>This all changed in 1996 when Eugene Habecker, the president and CEO of ABS, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/02/opinion/l-in-the-beginning-there-was-something-091162.html">expressed concern</a> over lack of Bible knowledge and questioned whether young people were actually reading the sacred text and applying its spiritual principles to their lives. </p>
<p>In 2001, the organization <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">adopted</a> a new vision statement. It dropped the phrase “without doctrinal note or comment” and added the clause “so that all may experience its (the Bible’s) life-changing message.” </p>
<p>From this point forward, ABS would engage in the practice of teaching and interpretation. The leadership would call this new approach “<a href="https://www.americanbible.org/uploads/content/wca-brochure-8x8-22114.pdf">scripture engagement</a>.”</p>
<p>Other changes took place at ABS under Habecker’s watch. He added more evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics to the board of managers. Some longtime ABS employees believed that Habecker was trying to move the organization away from the mainline Protestantism that <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">defined its identity</a> for much of the 20th century.</p>
<p>Habecker said that he was just trying to make the board more “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">interconfessional</a>.” He hoped that the people who ran ABS could affirm, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">Jesus Christ is Lord</a>” – nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>But from this point forward, ABS began working <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-bible-cause-9780190253066?cc=ca&lang=en&">more closely with evangelical groups</a>. They started providing grants for the publication of Bibles to organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ, the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism, Liberty University, and a host of evangelical missionary agencies.</p>
<p>Nearly all of the presidents who followed Habecker, including the current President <a href="https://www.americanbible.org/about/leadership">Roy Peterson</a>, have been evangelical Christians.</p>
<h2>Redefining a historical identity</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221385/original/file-20180601-142102-5w58ic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/funfilledgeorgie/9718257224/in/photolist-fNLBi3-aifwQ8-e3JQsx-eyt9Pg-ewknT1-8hDEQe-H5bNDS-5f7QX6-G6Q6e6-nbuWed-4Ff7WP-ewkohJ-ewknHC-nbwsSa-njxEpq-e71hzZ-eb5vdj-pKhxNq-gWG2SX-D2QyJX-Fb6ceW-4Ff83z-gWAfGi-4Fjm5G-gWzL69-nKjAng-piADfs-9oKakk-3LpSkK-22rPYwL-btYtCk-TnHfyh-3LpT94-KBdUB-KBdXM-bmqtaA-eFKT5g-7KHX8n-7KN2Yd-SGeEv6-m5SucG-bFEha6-eFMDLu-aJf7in-7KN7p9-7KHX8v-dbkeET-2G6Zv5-VaLyYF-2G6Yj7">George Redgrave</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “Affirmation of Biblical Community” needs to be understood in light of this recent history. Christians – Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox – committed to the historical creeds of the early Christian church could gladly sign this document. However, it excludes Christians who, for example, may not affirm a belief in the Virgin Birth, or who are convinced gay marriage is compatible with the teachings of the Bible. </p>
<p>The statement also includes a reference to the Christian doctrine of “regeneration,” the belief that the Holy Spirit instills believers with a new spiritual orientation toward life. While most forms of Christianity believe in some form of this doctrine, it is hard to read its inclusion in the ABS statement as anything but a veiled reference to being “born-again,” another word for the personal conversion experience that has long been a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Evangelicalism_in_Modern_Britain.html?id=bLOIAgAAQBAJ">part of evangelical teaching</a>. </p>
<p>Many evangelicals, and I imagine a good number of conservative Catholics, will celebrate the “Affirmation of Biblical Community.” Others will part ways with the organization. Indeed, many <a href="https://religionnews.com/2018/05/29/american-bible-society-to-require-regular-church-attendance-strict-sexuality-codes/">already have</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever one thinks about the new statement, it is definitely part of an ongoing effort by the evangelical leadership of ABS to redefine the historical identity of the Bible society movement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I received travel money from the American Bible Society, access to their archives, and funded research assistant to write *The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. This piece is based on my research for that book. My agreement with the American Bible Society gave me complete autonomy and control over my work and the book was published with Oxford University Press in 2016.</span></em></p>The American Bible Society, with an annual revenue of nearly $370 million, is one of the largest religious nonprofits, and a highly influential one.John Fea, Professor of American History, Messiah CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803542017-07-04T23:01:10Z2017-07-04T23:01:10ZHow the Nazis destroyed the first gay rights movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176456/original/file-20170630-8203-170x8ih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Damenkneipe,' or 'Ladies’ Saloon,' painted by Rudolf Schlichter in 1923. In 1937, many of his paintings were destroyed by the Nazis as 'degenerate art.'</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In 2017, Germany’s Cabinet approved <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39350105">a bill</a> that would expunge the convictions of tens of thousands of German men for “homosexual acts” under that country’s anti-gay law known as “<a href="https://www.ushmm.org/learn/students/learning-materials-and-resources/homosexuals-victims-of-the-nazi-era/paragraph-175">Paragraph 175</a>.” That law dates back to 1871, when modern Germany’s first legal code was created. </p>
<p>It was repealed in 1994. But there was a serious movement to repeal the law in 1929 as part of a wider LGBTQ rights movement. That was just before the Nazis came to power, magnified the anti-gay law, then sought to annihilate gay and transgender Europeans. </p>
<p>The story of how close Germany – and much of Europe – came to liberating its LGBTQ people before violently reversing that trend under new authoritarian regimes is an object lesson showing that the history of LGBTQ rights is not a record of constant progress.</p>
<h2>The first LGBTQ liberation movement</h2>
<p>In the 1920s, Berlin <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+men+with+the+pink+triangle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX0dX8uZzSAhWIRyYKHfj0DU8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=nearly%20a%20hundred%20gay%20and%20lesbian%20bars%22&f=false">had</a> nearly 100 gay and lesbian bars or cafes. Vienna <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/opposing-fascism/homosexual-men-in-vienna-1938/54937C49AA3BBCC3E27C8B0E2FF5ABDE">had</a> about a dozen gay cafes, clubs and bookstores. In Paris, certain quarters were renowned for <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/12215">open displays</a> of gay and trans nightlife. Even <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PW1GjP0_6Y4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=gay+paris+1920s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-koifqprSAhXJLSYKHXFMBPoQ6AEILDAD#v=snippet&q=%22to%20florence%2C%20where%20he%20could%22&f=false">Florence</a>, Italy, had its own gay district, as did many smaller European cities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/movies/different-from-the-others-a-1919-film-on-homosexuality.html">Films</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aO7YCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=robert+beachy+gay+berlin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbluu9mN7SAhVI74MKHek_CxEQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=%22different%20from%20others%22&f=false">began</a> depicting sympathetic gay characters. Protests were organized against offensive depictions of LGBTQ people in print or on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aO7YCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=robert+beachy+gay+berlin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbluu9mN7SAhVI74MKHek_CxEQ6AEIGjAA#v=snippet&q=">stage</a>. And media <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aO7YCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=robert+beachy+gay+berlin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbluu9mN7SAhVI74MKHek_CxEQ6AEIGjAA#v=snippet&q=entrepreneur&f=false">entrepreneurs</a> realized there was a middle-class gay and trans readership to whom they could cater.</p>
<p>Partly driving this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started looking at homosexuality and “transvestism” (a word of that era that encompassed transgender people) as a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4ss2DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT1155&dq=hirschfield+transvestism+natural&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCk5eS_eXUAhXs5oMKHfwZDYkQ6AEIOTAE#v=onepage&q=normal%20variations%20on%20human%20experience&f=false">natural</a> characteristic with which some were born, and not a “derangement.” The story of Lili Elbe and the first modern sex change, made famous in the recent film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810819/">“The Danish Girl,”</a> reflected these trends.</p>
<p>For example, Berlin <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mWXFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA83&dq=Berlin+opened+its+Institute+for+Sexual+Research&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTvuzA_eXUAhVFw4MKHURNC0QQ6AEIRzAG#v=snippet&q=opening%20the%20institute%20was%20a%20dream&f=false">opened</a> its Institute for Sexual Research in 1919, the place where the word “transsexual” was coined, and where people could receive counseling and other services. Its lead doctor, Magnus Hirschfeld, also consulted on the Lili Elbe sex change.</p>
<p>Connected to this institute was an organization called the “Scientific-Humanitarian Committee.” With the motto “justice through science,” this group of scientists and LGBTQ people <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m-mc76HwPdwC&pg=PA94&dq=motto,+%22justice+through+science,%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ9bL0_eXUAhWDyoMKHWVsBn0Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=motto%2C%20%22justice%20through%20science%2C%22&f=false">promoted</a> equal rights, arguing that LGBTQ people were not aberrations of nature.</p>
<p>Most European capitals hosted a branch of the group, which sponsored talks and sought the repeal of Germany’s “Paragraph 175.” Combining with other liberal groups and politicians, it succeeded in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xmlWr4aAt4EC&pg=PA204&dq=motto,+%22justice+through+science%22+for+a+repeal+of+Paragraph+175&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipvaun_uXUAhXM8YMKHQwrD0IQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q=motto%2C%20%22justice%20through%20science%22%20for%20a%20repeal%20of%20Paragraph%20175&f=false">influencing</a> a German parliamentary committee to recommend the repeal to the wider government in 1929.</p>
<h2>The backlash</h2>
<p>While these developments didn’t mean the end of centuries of intolerance, the 1920s and early ‘30s certainly looked like the beginning of the end. On the other hand, the greater “out-ness” of gay and trans people provoked their opponents.</p>
<p>A French reporter, bemoaning the sight of uncloseted LGBTQ people in public, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/12215">complained</a>, “the contagion … is corrupting every milieu.” The Berlin police grumbled that magazines aimed at gay men – which they called “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=YquzCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=laurie+marhoefer+sex+and+the+weimar&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisxuafhJrSAhXB3SYKHV4pBUAQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=%22obscene%20press%20materials%22&f=false">obscene press materials</a>” – were proliferating. In Vienna, lectures of the “Scientific Humanitarian Committee” might be packed with supporters, but one was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/opposing-fascism/homosexual-men-in-vienna-1938/54937C49AA3BBCC3E27C8B0E2FF5ABDE">attacked</a> by young men hurling stink bombs. A Parisian town councilor in 1933 called it “a moral crisis” that gay people, known as “inverts” at that time, could be seen in public.</p>
<p>“Far be it from me to want to turn to fascism,” <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/12215">the councilor said</a>, “but all the same, we have to agree that in some things those regimes have sometimes done good… One day Hitler and Mussolini woke up and said, ‘Honestly, the scandal has gone on long enough’ … And … the inverts … were chased out of Germany and Italy the very next day.”</p>
<h2>The ascent of Fascism</h2>
<p>It’s this willingness to make a blood sacrifice of minorities in exchange for “normalcy” or prosperity that has observers drawing uncomfortable comparisons between then and now.</p>
<p>In the 1930s, the Depression spread economic anxiety, while political fights in European parliaments tended to spill outside into actual <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=V42QBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT110&dq=germany+rise+fascism+street+fighting+violence&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik-ufk_uXUAhWBzIMKHWK8B9IQ6AEIQTAE#v=onepage&q=violence%20occupied&f=false">street fights</a> between Left and Right. Fascist parties offered Europeans a choice of stability at the price of democracy. Tolerance of minorities was destabilizing, they said. Expanding liberties gave “undesirable” people the liberty to undermine security and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=YquzCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=laurie+marhoefer+sex+and+the&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyp8Hknd7SAhUI0oMKHRxXAqAQ6AEIGjAA#v=snippet&q=complained%20of%20the%20%22rapid%20flood%22&f=false">threaten traditional</a> “moral” culture. Gay and trans people were an obvious target.</p>
<p>What happened next shows the whiplash speed with which the progress of a generation can be thrown into reverse.</p>
<h2>The nightmare</h2>
<p>One day in May 1933, pristine white-shirted students marched in front of Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Research – that safe haven for LGBTQ people – calling it “Un-German.” Later, a mob hauled out its library to be burned. Later still, its acting head <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=t7pEmb3nQ2cC&pg=PA66&dq=kurt+hiller+institute+berlin+concentration+camp&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9rfquqOXSAhUBGGMKHTEYDiUQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=kurt%20hiller%20was%20arrested&f=false">was arrested</a>.</p>
<p>When Nazi leader Adolph Hitler needed to <a href="http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-roehm.htm">justify</a> arresting and murdering former political allies in 1934, he said they were gay. This <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007885">fanned</a> anti-gay zealotry by the Gestapo, which opened a special anti-gay <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/pro-choice/himmler-order.html">branch</a>. During the following year alone, the Gestapo arrested more than <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/opposing-fascism/homosexual-men-in-vienna-1938/54937C49AA3BBCC3E27C8B0E2FF5ABDE">8,500</a> gay men, quite possibly using a list of names and addresses seized at the Institute for Sexual Research. Not only was Paragraph 175 not erased, as a parliamentary committee had recommended just a few years before, it was amended to be more expansive and punitive. </p>
<p>As the Gestapo spread throughout Europe, it expanded the hunt. In Vienna, it <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/opposing-fascism/homosexual-men-in-vienna-1938/54937C49AA3BBCC3E27C8B0E2FF5ABDE">hauled in</a> every gay man on police lists and questioned them, trying to get them to name others. The fortunate ones went to jail. The less fortunate went to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/opposing-fascism/homosexual-men-in-vienna-1938/54937C49AA3BBCC3E27C8B0E2FF5ABDE">Buchenwald and Dachau</a>. In conquered France, Alsace police <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/12215">worked with</a> the Gestapo to arrest at least 200 men and send them to concentration camps. Italy, with a fascist regime obsessed with virility, sent at least 300 gay men to brutal camps during the war period, declaring them “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NLrCagrmdvwC&dq=book+%22the+enemy+of+the+new+man%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE7MK3lZ3SAhVDeCYKHV_ABbIQ6AEIGjAA">dangerous</a> for the integrity of the race.” </p>
<p>The total number of Europeans arrested for being LGBTQ under fascism is impossible to know because of the lack of reliable records. But a conservative estimate is that there were many <a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib214108">tens of thousands</a> to <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/ernst-rohm-the-highest-ranking-gay-nazi/">one hundred thousand</a> arrests during the war period alone.</p>
<p>Under these nightmare conditions, far more LGBTQ people in Europe painstakingly hid their genuine sexuality to avoid suspicion, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+men+with+the+pink+triangle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWjr-vj5_SAhVI4CYKHWsgB-oQ6AEIHDAA#v=snippet&q=%22escaped%20into%20marriage%22&f=false">marrying</a> members of the opposite sex, for example. Still, if they had been prominent members of the gay and trans community before the fascists came to power, as Berlin lesbian club owner Lotte Hahm was, it was too late to hide. She was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PW1GjP0_6Y4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+history+of+homosexuality+in+Europe:+Berlin,+London,+Paris,+1919-1939&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-krqE9p7SAhVG7YMKHaw9DhkQ6AEIHDAA#v=snippet&q=lesbian%20club%20Violetta%20was%20arr">sent</a> to a concentration camp. </p>
<p>In those camps, gay men were marked with a pink triangle. In these places of horror, men with pink triangles were <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20050726-giles.pdf">singled out</a> for particular abuse. They were mechanically <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/I_Pierre_Seel_Deported_Homosexual.html?id=S6sdDOjK05YC">raped</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/260778?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">castrated</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=men+with+the+pink+triangle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF-5rUjJ_SAhWF7iYKHairBhUQ6AEIHDAA#v=snippet&q=prioritized%20for%20medical%20experiments&f=false">favored</a> for medical <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+men+with+the+pink+triangle%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjirZC8mJ_SAhUl3YMKHXUZDDsQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=capsules&f=false">experiments</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=S6sdDOjK05YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=I+pierre+seel&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBhKT4jZ_SAhVCRiYKHQdDAc4Q6AEIHDAA#v=snippet&q=%22never%20forget%20the%20barbaric%20murder%22&f=false">murdered</a> for guards’ sadistic <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=men+with+the+pink+triangle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF-5rUjJ_SAhWF7iYKHairBhUQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22use%20us%20pink-triangle%20prisoners%20as%20living%20targets%22&f=false">pleasure</a> even when they were not sentenced for “liquidation.” One gay man attributed his survival to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UYh_OaQrEvcC&dq=tear+off+pink+triangle+for+red&source=gbs_navlinks_s">swapping</a> his pink triangle for a red one – indicating he was merely a Communist. They were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cRUfXHoNfNcC&dq=V%C3%ADctimas+de+la+victoria&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQo4Hcjp_SAhUFOyYKHePeCfoQ6AEIGjAA">ostracized</a> and tormented by their fellow inmates, too.</p>
<h2>The looming danger of a backslide</h2>
<p>This isn’t 1930s Europe. And making superficial comparisons between then and now can only yield superficial conclusions. </p>
<p>But with new forms of authoritarianism entrenched and seeking to expand in Europe and beyond, it’s worth thinking about the fate of Europe’s LGBTQ community in the 1930s and ‘40s – a timely note from history as Germany <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-gay-marriage-idUSKBN19L0PQ">approves</a> same-sex marriage and on this first anniversary of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0">Obergefell v. Hodges</a>. </p>
<p>In 1929, Germany came close to erasing its anti-gay law, only to see it strengthened soon thereafter. Only after a gap of 88 years are convictions under that law being annulled. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Broich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1920s and early ‘30’s looked like the beginning of the end for centuries of gay intolerance. Then came fascism and the Nazis.John Broich, Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/761562017-04-24T21:57:03Z2017-04-24T21:57:03ZWitch-hunts and surveillance: the hidden lives of queer people in the military<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166391/original/file-20170424-12662-1ibj2bi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rainbow wreath laid by defence forces at a contemporary Anzac Day service. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Spellman/Defence Gay and Lesbian Information Service</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year, I interviewed a man who had joined the Royal Australian Navy aged 19 in 1967, as Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War escalated. He had a family tradition of military involvement, with a father who had also served in the navy, and he signed up for what was to be an initial nine-year stint.</p>
<p>The man’s military career came to an abrupt end against his will after six years of service in 1973 when he was discovered to be homosexual. He described to me a process of extensive interrogation by military police, his home being searched, his partner being intimidated and his ultimate discharge from the navy.</p>
<p>He remembered thinking “all they were interested in was getting me out and preventing pollution”. The time from his initial interrogation to being discharged took just five days.</p>
<p>Officially, gay men and lesbian women were banned from serving in the army, airforce and navy until 1992, when Prime Minister Paul Keating had the political courage to overturn the ban. Until then, it was argued that homosexuality threatened military cohesion and morale. By contrast, the US kept its “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, which officially barred entry for gays and lesbians to the military while allowing them to join as long as they didn’t disclose their sexuality, for more than two decades. </p>
<p>Before 1992 in Australia, those who did serve were forced to hide their sexuality, facing discharge if their homosexuality was exposed. The <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/15/let-them-serve-defence-drops-ban-on-transgender-soldiers/">ban on transgender service</a> lasted even longer, a further 18 years. The contribution of intersex personnel (those born with aspects of both sexes) is still to be fully unearthed.</p>
<p>Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) service personnel have largely been written out Australia’s military history. But researchers are now correcting the record.</p>
<p>Notable and important exceptions to the historical silence on LGBTI military service include the meticulous archival research of Yorick Smaal and Graham Willett, who have shown an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-secret-history-of-sexuality-on-the-front-20121220-2bp9m.html">extensive history of gay service</a> in the Australian military during the second world war. </p>
<p>Historian Ruth Ford has similarly shown that lesbian women have served since WWII, for as long as women were permitted to take on service roles. I am now working as part of a team with Noah Riseman and Willett, recording the history of the thousands <a href="http://www.lgbtimilitaryhistory.com.au">LGBTI personnel who served since 1945</a>. </p>
<p>These soldiers did their duty as they were asked, making the many sacrifices that are required in the military – spending time away from friends and families, and forsaking the casual comforts taken for granted by most civilians. Most importantly, all made the sacred and firm commitment to defend Australia with their lives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The defence forces first marched in uniform in the 2013 Sydney Mardi Gras.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Commonwealth of Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They did all this when gay men were treated as criminals under the law and when lesbians were punished as deviants who might somehow contaminate the services. Simply being identified as homosexual or transgender was enough to negate your ability and your sacrifice in the view of the defence forces.</p>
<p>As we conduct our research, we are hearing stories from individuals who managed to hide their sexuality or their gender identity and served out their time in their military in silence. </p>
<p>For some, the strain of having to live a double life became too much, forcing them to leave so they could live a more open life. Others managed to carefully compartmentalise their lives and remain undetected by military officials.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166421/original/file-20170424-12629-xvui9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Army personnel gather before the 2013 Mardi Gras.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Commonwealth of Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Service and sacrifice</h2>
<p>We are also hearing heartbreaking stories of people who had invested time and energy into building a life in the military, only to have this all taken from them when their sexuality was exposed or when they needed to transition to live life as their authentic gender. What emerges is a harrowing history of capacity lost as a result of pointless discrimination.</p>
<p>These men and women are courageous not just because of their military sacrifice, but also because they served knowing they were still considered unequal. Within the military, many were subjected to witch-hunts, surveillance, homophobia and dishonourable discharge, with all the future challenges that would present, ranging from limited employment opportunities to ongoing stigma in a homophobic society. Transgender personnel were treated with ignorance and denied the opportunity to serve in the capacities and at the levels they were worthy.</p>
<p>I spoke with one woman who joined up to serve in the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps at the age of 18 in 1979. Even as a child, she knew that for her it was always going to be a life in the military. Rising rapidly through the ranks, she ended up with a top security clearance and eventually trained eight platoons at Kapooka. </p>
<p>Her career came to an end after ten years, though, when her identity as a lesbian was exposed and her top-secret security clearance was revoked along with her opportunity to serve out her current role in the army. She says simply of this time, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was so shattered.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As our interview came to an end, this woman told me how happy she was that LGBTI soldiers feel free and able to serve proudly in uniform today. She feels that, slowly, Australians are becoming increasingly aware that Anzac Day is a day to remember the contribution of all of those who served their country – regardless of their sexuality, gender identity or race. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Spellman/Defence Gay and Lesbian Information Service</span></span>
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<p>On Anzac morning in cities across Australia, service personnel will lay wreaths to commemorate generations of LGBTI military service. It is now possible to acknowledge dual identities - as service personnel and as LGBTI people. Knowing more about the background to this makes us realise how remarkable this truly is. Learning from this history is a vital step in celebrating all our citizens fairly and equally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shirleene Robinson's research receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Until 1992, being a gay or lesbian soldier was illegal in Australia. New research is unearthing the heartbreaking stories of people who devoted their lives to the military but were discharged when their sexuality was exposed.Shirleene Robinson, Associate Professor and Vice Chancellor's Innovation Fellow, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731362017-02-28T19:06:30Z2017-02-28T19:06:30ZFaggots, punks, and prostitutes: the evolving language of gay men<p>Joe Jackson’s 1982 hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MguDwzZ99fs">Real Men</a> was the first time I had heard gays referred to as faggots. I was just out of the closet and in my first gay relationship in London. Jackson’s lyrics about how only our friends and other gays could call us faggots was encouraging, coming as it did from a straight man singing a song just before AIDS hit.</p>
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<p>Faggot, often-considered a slur, has been reclaimed many times over by gay men, including in a new play by Declan Greene, <a href="http://malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/the-homosexuals-or-faggots">The Homosexuals, or “Faggots”</a>, currently showing at the Malthouse in Melbourne. The play looks at gay male relationships and their politics, and is apt as middle-class gay men and lesbians struggle with acceptance all over again in the face of their call for marriage equality.</p>
<p>My friends and I called ourselves fags because it was a way of turning the abuse on its head and laughing at the straight bullies. </p>
<p>And in merry-old-England there was abuse: one night when leaving gay club Heaven, a bunch of lads called us and our female friends “pooh jabbers”. It was graphic and offensive (“bum bandit” being a similar, anal-fixated term from about the same time) and it occurred to me how deeply, viscerally they hated us. </p>
<p>Language defines who you are. But words used by others to define gay people can say a great deal more about them than us. </p>
<h2>From prostitutes to gays</h2>
<p>Let’s begin with the most common term, “gay”, which baby-boomer homosexuals appropriated for their liberationist cause in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its pedigree is longer and according to Edmund White originally applied to women and meant loose or immoral, as in a prostitute. And “gay-house” was the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=7S29-ASD1HgC&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=the+political+vocabulary+of+homosexuality+edmund+white&source=bl&ots=fCrnBkkZy8&sig=e2bXjtrlf-rSSArEw7HjwhOfPgo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-8uapt5vSAhUGmJQKHeADCoYQ6AEIMDAF#v=onepage&q=the">term for a brothel</a>. “In the past one asked if a woman was "gay,” much as today one might ask if she “swings,”“ wrote White. </p>
<p>"Homosexual” (or “homosexualist”) has similar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/05/coming-out-jeffrey-weeks-gay-emancipation-uk">19th-century origins</a> and was originally coined in 1869 by a Hungarian doctor, <a href="http://lgbthistoryproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/how-male-same-sex-desire-got-its-name.html">Karoly Maria Benkert</a>.</p>
<p>“Faggot” has had different meanings according to where and when it was used. In eighteenth-century London it was first a term for prostitute then for homosexual. In 1920s New York, it described an effeminate homosexual who sought social/sexual relations with “normal men”, according to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108295.Gay_New_York">George Chauncey</a> while a “flaming faggot” was an extremely obvious, flamboyant gay man.</p>
<p>In 1970s Australia, the ubiquitous “poofter” covered all forms of deviancy including men who had sex with other men, poor-performing sportsmen, politicians and motorists. Meanwhile, as the documentary <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/deep-water-the-real-story/article/2016/09/27/deep-water-real-story-crime-documentary-pulls-no-punches">Deep Water</a> revealed, the literal bashing and killing of poofters caught at it in public parklands was something of a pastime.</p>
<p>“Cat” from “catamite” is ancient Roman with connotations of effeminacy, prostitution, and the passive role in a sexual encounter. “Fruit” was, like faggot, according to US historian <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.00052/abstract">Randolph Trumbach</a>, a term first used in the 18th century for a prostitute and then a sodomite. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108295.Gay_New_York">“Fairy” and “queer”</a> had similar origins between the world wars. </p>
<p>Why the fixation on prostitution? As Trumbach explains, there is a “long tradition in English usage” of words that are used to designate a prostitute being appropriated one generation later to describe sodomites.</p>
<p>This tendency for the words for prostitute to be later used for homosexual dates from 18th-century England when they often shared common social spaces, argues gay historian <a href="http://rictornorton.co.uk/molly.htm">Rictor Norton</a>. </p>
<p>Much later, historians such as <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/953514.Slumming">Chad Heap</a> and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108295.Gay_New_York">George Chauncey</a> found similar intermingling in the underground bars that operated in New York and Chicago during Prohibition in the US.</p>
<h2>The words gays use for themselves</h2>
<p>Because of the sardonic nature of gayness, all of the above would have to be included also in the vocabulary of gay men and queers. </p>
<p>As well, there are community-specific terms, such as “clone”. Historically-specific, it connotes the style of gay men mid-1970 to mid-1980s (moustache, short hair, faded, baggy Levis and pocket and/or neck handkerchief) as exemplified by the lead singer of the Bronski Beat at the time of their hit single, Smalltown Boy.</p>
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<p>More arcane terms include “ganymede” (a young male) which was used by Oscar Wilde and his contemporaries and “Marianne” and “Molly” from the earlier 18th century, again connoting an <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.00052/abstract">effeminate (or passive) male</a>. </p>
<p>“Nance” and “nancy boy” as well as “Nelly” and “nellies” were terms used by both gays and straights also connoting effeminacy or youthfulness. According to one of writer <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19130210">Keith Vacha’s interviewees</a>, nellies were “common queens” by which he meant: “ones with bleached blonde hair and plucked eyebrows”. </p>
<p>And finally, perhaps to the consternation of some of today’s toughs, there is “punk,” which according to Rudolph Trumbach was once the slang term for both prostitute and sodomite.</p>
<h2>Terms of abuse and endearment</h2>
<p>Terms of abuse are a way of distinguishing those whom we choose to marginalise because we do not like the look of them or because we were there first. In other words, they are the “outsiders” of sociologist <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-established-and-the-outsiders/book203270">Norbert Elias’s important work</a> from the mid-1960s. </p>
<p>Humans have been doing this from the outset. Gangs and groups, them and us, and in the case of sexual preference, there are the straights, the “normals”, if you like, and the others, the sexual outcasts.</p>
<p>The terms I’ve illustrated were used by the majority to exclude prostitutes and homosexuals from “polite” society. While these terms were used to mark their difference, this did not prevent males from that same polite society from using the good services of prostitutes and homosexuals when it suited them. And as they did so then, they still do so now.</p>
<p>What is also interesting is the way in which sexual outcasts could adopt terms of abuse used for them and turn them into terms of endearment for each other — as my friends and I did in the 1980s when we called ourselves fags. And so, self mockery becomes a form of defence against the strictures of the priests and preachers.</p>
<p>It was literally the priests and the preachers, and later doctors and lawyers, who sought to demarcate “useful” sexual activity from wasted sexual activity. According to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1875.The_History_of_Sexuality_Volume_1">historian Michel Foucault</a> the monogamous heterosexual couple produced new workers; those erotic and sexual activities that detracted from or weakened it were identified, categorised, and punished by law.</p>
<p>That young, gay men are now starting to reclaim these words is significant. It could mean that they are becoming interested in finding out where they have came from, that is, what are the origins of the culture they inhabit?</p>
<p>Twenty-one years ago, AIDS, which was then the dominant concern for gay men and culture, ceased to be a death sentence and instead became a manageable disease. Young men who have grown up since then could feel that other aspects of gay life can now be explored with greater freedom. </p>
<p>If this is so, it would suggest a strengthening of gay culture and community because people can only start exploring their past, warts and all, when they feel safe.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/the-homosexuals-or-faggots">The Homosexuals, or “Faggots”</a> will be showing at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre until March 12.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From “gay” to “poofter” to “fairy” - the words used by others to define gay people can say a great deal more about them than us.Peter Robinson, Senior lecturer in History and Sociology, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670442016-10-28T01:01:18Z2016-10-28T01:01:18ZHow a new generation is changing evangelical Christianity<p>Since the late 1970s, American evangelicalism has been largely identified with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/16/trumps-success-with-evangelical-voters-isnt-surprising-it-was-inevitable/?utm_term=.d11607f12953">right-wing politics.</a> Conservative religious values entered the political sphere through movements such as <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/age-reagan/timeline-terms/moral-majority">Moral Majority</a> and <a href="http://www.focusonthefamily.com/?utm_source=family.org&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=vanityURLredirects2016">Focus on the Family</a> that opposed gay rights, abortion, feminism and other liberal issues. </p>
<p>Evangelical leaders have influenced national elections and public policy. They have been instrumental in pushing the Republican Party toward increasingly conservative social policies. They have generally been the <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/">most consistent voting bloc</a> within the Republican Party.</p>
<p>But, evangelical Christianity, as we have known it, is changing. While <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/07/evangelical-leaders-shrug-at-donald-trump-s-lewd-comments.html">old guard evangelical leaders</a> are vocally supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump for president, there is a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/donald-trump-a-declaration-by-american-evangelicals-concerning-donald-trump">groundswell of opposition</a> from within evangelicals. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/rcci/">research focus</a> is on vibrant religious congregations. I am seeing the emergence of a new generation of evangelicals that has a very different view of what it means to be a “Jesus follower.” </p>
<p>This generation is abstaining from the political theology of the earlier generation and focusing their attention, instead, on improving the lives of people in their local communities.</p>
<h2>History of evangelicals</h2>
<p>The groundwork for American-style conservative evangelicalism was laid several decades before the rise of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family movements. Evangelicals, and their forbears the “fundamentalists,” had long made education and mass communication a <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">centerpiece of their efforts</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the late 19th century, Bible training schools were set up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-photos/6385742691/in/photolist-aJhAPV-3A1PnV-8TDYe8-7w4yGQ-DjWTq-p6YBGj-9NtW8B-uA4HE-damrjn-7eX2vf-5EsmGM-9ujjtc-8RqkfM-5r9n3V-4oSuMn-dN3H2g-gq5Mw-9oZ7Xi-5UmiCv-nKDY9i-btEjgF-5jBGX-9NtW6D-scAcbJ-9NwGFS-cD1Lum-6B71Q-36xTo2-9NwGCJ-cKEVJs-dqjQYQ-hdpTVm-Jt92F-muB5SG-8MBxXp-9wQUp9-8SkGgk-bqCKZK-8WSWR7-XNqCp-dRTgg-5Rmzy7-p5CpVq-r4993-6HMSig-7yunJR-8Y9qFN-ziQ8i-efPyCy-icqa4">alex.ch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Starting in the late 19th century, they established post-secondary Bible training schools and utilized various mass media outlets, such as their own magazines and radio stations to get their religious message out.</p>
<p>After World War II, these efforts <a href="https://www.acsi.org/Documents/MarCom/ACSI%202014%20Annual%20Report_web.pdf">expanded to include</a> elementary and secondary schools – now numbering almost 3,000, along with <a href="http://cccu.org/members_and_affiliates">approximately 150 evangelical colleges and seminaries</a> in the U.S. In addition, evangelicals expanded their media efforts in publishing (books and national periodicals such as <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">Christianity Today</a>), radio and television. </p>
<p>Even though these schools and media outlets were independent from each other, they were unified in a shared theological and moral perspective that served to reproduce evangelical culture and beliefs, and to disseminate the religiously tinged political message of the religious right.</p>
<h2>Rifts within</h2>
<p>This once-unified movement is now dividing over whether to support Donald Trump in the general election. </p>
<p>Old guard evangelicals such as the founder of the Focus on the Family movement <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october/james-dobson-why-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump.html">James Dobson</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/01/27/jerry-falwell-jr-heres-the-backstory-of-why-i-endorsed-donald-trump/">Jerry Falwell Jr.,</a> son of the Moral Majority founder and current president of Liberty University, are warning of dire consequences for the U.S. if Trump is not elected.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october/james-dobson-why-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump.html">According to Dobson</a>, without a Trump presidency, the U.S. will “see a massive assault on religious liberty,” which would “limit what pastors… can say publicly,” and would “severely restrict the freedoms of Christian schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, hospitals, charities, and seminaries.” </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/17/why-people-of-faith-dont-have-to-vote-between-the-lesser-of-two-evils/">not all evangelicals</a> are supporting Trump, even though they remain true to the Republican Party. These evangelicals are alarmed at what they see as the vulgar and immoral lifestyle that Trump exemplifies. </p>
<p>In the past, mobilizing this vast religious and political machinery would have resulted in overwhelming and unquestioning support for the Republican candidate. This was first seen with Ronald Reagan in 1980 who won the White House with widespread support of evangelicals, and has been repeated in <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/">each election</a> since. </p>
<p>But this time, a call to support Trump has exposed deep divisions within evangelicals that have gone unnoticed until now. </p>
<p>The point is that Trump represents to many the very antithesis of the kind of moral probity that evangelical leaders <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/">have spent their lives defending</a>. </p>
<h2>Differences over social and moral issues</h2>
<p>How did this happen? While the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/">mostly white religious right</a> was gaining political and cultural power over the last 40 years, evangelicalism became as much a <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/whats-an-evangelical-these-days-trumps-advisors-point-to-divisions/">political and racial identity</a> as a religious or theological one.</p>
<p>Survey research and election polls have failed to differentiate the differences within the movement between whites, Latinos, African-Americans and Asians who all share the same basic evangelical theology, but who may part company over other social and moral issues.</p>
<p>For example, in most surveys and political polls, “evangelical” is <a href="http://ava.publicreligion.org/#religious/2015/States/religion">limited to white believers</a>, with others who may be similar theologically being classified into other racial/ethnically identified categories such as “Black Protestant,” “Latino Protestant” or “Other nonwhite Protestant.” </p>
<p>Further, as with all religious groups in the U.S., the evangelical movement began struggling to keep its young people in the fold. <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/will-the-real-evangelical-millennials-please-stand-up/">Recent research</a> shows that among young adults who were identified as evangelicals as teenagers, only 45 percent can still be identified as such. </p>
<h2>A new generation</h2>
<p>At its most basic level, American evangelicalism is characterized by a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” encouraging others to be “born again” in Jesus and a lively worship culture. </p>
<p>This definition encompasses many groups that were not historically included in the old religious right. Thus, while <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-evangelical-latinos-20160523-snap-htmlstory.html">Latino evangelicals believe</a> the same thing about the Bible and Jesus as white evangelicals, their particular social context in many cases leads to a different political stance. </p>
<p>As these new and growing groups find their own voices, <a href="http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/new-poll-evangelical-support-for-immigration-reform-remains-robust/">they are challenging</a> the dominant evangelical perspective on political issues such as immigration and economic inequality.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com">Evangelical Immigration Table</a>, established in 2014, has been working across a broad spectrum of evangelical churches and other institutions to highlight what they see as the biblical imperative to support a just and humane immigration policy. These groups range from the <a href="http://www.erlc.org">Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention to the <a href="http://www.nhclc.org">National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, younger evangelicals are increasingly coming of age in more diverse neighborhoods and schools, leading to an openness to other racial and religious groups, LGBT people and social justice issues in ways that older evangelicals strenuously opposed. </p>
<p>Further, while the educational successes of evangelicalism, through its many and varied curricula, have served to socialize young people into the “biblically based” moral world, it has also taught them how to read the Bible critically and to pay attention to biblical themes and narrative through-lines that resonate with their own life experiences. </p>
<p>According to a pastor of a church included in my research, he is seeing young evangelicals apply the interpretive skills they have learned in school and church to a broader range of biblical teachings. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When you start to examine the teachings of Jesus, you’re going to end up seeing that justice matters, that we have a responsibility to care for the poor. Younger evangelicals are basically using those same hermeneutical tools to study the Bible and are saying, wait a minute, not only is there nothing wrong with caring about justice, there’s something wrong with not [caring].”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, while young evangelicals in some ways still evidence a shared theology with their parents’ generation – for example, on biblical passages that would support a “pro-life” perspective – they part company through their engagement with passages that emphasize the believer’s responsibility for the poor.</p>
<h2>View of social justice</h2>
<p>The younger evangelicals that I’ve been studying are not taking the expected evangelical position in this election, such as supporting Donald Trump, or supporting a broader agenda as that promoted by evangelical leaders such as James Dobson. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Younger evangelicals have widely different views.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gfes/8551296501/in/photolist-e2KTqf-e2KfHN-e2KPz5-e2Ebxi-e2KQgG-e2Kdef-e2KP5j-e2EawV-e2DB4X-e2KPNq-e2KQ5N-e2KPm3-e2KedE-e2KeK9-e2DA34-e2DAcp-e2Ket9-e2Kgs9-e2Kf7h-e2DCSv-e2Ke5E-e2DvQR-e2DxLe-ryRqGk-995Bds-e2Dvez-e2DAzT-e2KbWu-e2KbDy-e2Dvu2-e2Kgz3-e2Kdu7-e2DvGx-e2DtK6-e2DCwz-e2Kd8s-e2Kh5U-e2DwkZ-e2Dwza-e2Kci3-e2K9Q7-e2Dy4e-e2Duyc-e2Dw5H">George Fox Evangelical Seminary</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, the political activism that these younger evangelicals tend to engage in usually relates to issues like improving local schools, creating job opportunities, caring for the homeless and other activities that have been largely overlooked by American evangelicalism as it has been practiced over the past several decades.</p>
<p>In my interviews, I’ve asked many of these younger evangelicals how their religious commitments relate to politics. Their responses show a simultaneous distancing from “politics,” and a desire to seek change in a way that is consistent with their beliefs. A good example of this kind of response came from a 20-something African-American young woman who told me, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I also don’t care much for politics, because it’s so ugly. I just feel like, let’s commit to loving people. When I think about laws that unjustly affect minorities or the poor, that bothers me only because of the Gospel.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Diverse world view</h2>
<p>These evangelicals have staked out a middle ground that is neither Democrat nor Republican, <a href="http://theconversation.com/evangelical-christians-are-on-the-left-too-66253">liberal</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/17/why-people-of-faith-dont-have-to-vote-between-the-lesser-of-two-evils/">conservative</a>. </p>
<p>This is not to say that younger evangelicals are all in agreement with how their religious views should be applied in the world. Rather, they are opting out of the political identities and battles that have characterized evangelicalism for the past 40 years.</p>
<p>Their world is more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and religious beliefs. Their friends are as likely to be straight or gay, Christian or Buddhist, or black or Latino. </p>
<p>That has informed the way that they understand their religious beliefs and their political alignments. They are seeking to live out their faith in response to a world that is different from the world that leaders of the old religious right inhabit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Flory has received funding from the John Templeton Foundation.</span></em></p>Younger evangelicals have a very different view of their faith.Their perspective on issues such as immigration and economic inequality differs widely from that of the religious right.Richard Flory, Senior Director of Research and Evaluation, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.