Start Date

11-10-2017 8:30 AM

Keywords

LGBTQ, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI), Christian conservative, US government, human rights

Abstract

The American Christian conservative movement is the most consistent and persistent adversary of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) civil rights in the US. In recent years, the Christian right has responded to changes in attitudes to same-sex sexuality in the US by relocating some of their attention and operations to issues and arenas of contest outside the US that hold more promise for implacable antagonism to rights and recognition for LGBTQ people. In some parts of the world, these US-based anti-LGBTQ actors have become recognized as “experts” on gender and sexual minorities and the dire consequences the existence of LGBTQ people poses. Thus, the Christian right constructs and disseminates faith-based perspectives on human rights to oppose the codification and enactment of human rights protections for gender and sexual minorities.

International Christian conservative activism against LGBT people, same-sex sexuality, and non-normative gender identity has required the formation of alliances and the constant development of new rhetorics and practices. When it comes to Christian conservative rhetoric and activism against SOGI human rights and the US government’s affirmation of those rights, the movement increasingly has found itself in the position of enacting a kind of cultural relativism that has unanticipated but possibly unavoidable implications and side effects.

In this paper, I outline key rhetorical and strategic elements of US Christian right opposition to SOGI human rights advocacy, focusing specifically on opposition to US government support for SOGI human rights and what Christian conservative elites regard as the promise of the Trump administration to end support for these human rights.

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Nov 10th, 8:30 AM

No Human Right to Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition to SOGI Human Rights

The American Christian conservative movement is the most consistent and persistent adversary of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) civil rights in the US. In recent years, the Christian right has responded to changes in attitudes to same-sex sexuality in the US by relocating some of their attention and operations to issues and arenas of contest outside the US that hold more promise for implacable antagonism to rights and recognition for LGBTQ people. In some parts of the world, these US-based anti-LGBTQ actors have become recognized as “experts” on gender and sexual minorities and the dire consequences the existence of LGBTQ people poses. Thus, the Christian right constructs and disseminates faith-based perspectives on human rights to oppose the codification and enactment of human rights protections for gender and sexual minorities.

International Christian conservative activism against LGBT people, same-sex sexuality, and non-normative gender identity has required the formation of alliances and the constant development of new rhetorics and practices. When it comes to Christian conservative rhetoric and activism against SOGI human rights and the US government’s affirmation of those rights, the movement increasingly has found itself in the position of enacting a kind of cultural relativism that has unanticipated but possibly unavoidable implications and side effects.

In this paper, I outline key rhetorical and strategic elements of US Christian right opposition to SOGI human rights advocacy, focusing specifically on opposition to US government support for SOGI human rights and what Christian conservative elites regard as the promise of the Trump administration to end support for these human rights.