Social Affiliation from Religious Disaffiliation: Evidence of Selective Mixing Among Youth with No Religious Preference During the Transition to College

The number of individuals claiming a nonreligious identity in the United States is on the rise, with one‐fourth of the overall U.S. public failing to identify with any of the major religious traditions. In this article, we examine whether religious disaffiliation structures social network formation in a social context in which religious identification (and religiosity) is a salient cultural marker. We take advantage of unique data on the personal networks of youth transitioning into a college where religion is a culturally salient facet of everyday life. We hypothesize that, if there is nonreligious homophily, it may result from an attraction of the disaffiliated to each other or from a repulsion away from the religiously affiliated. Results of exponential random graph models suggest that both mechanisms may be at play. We find that religious “Nones” and affiliated non‐Catholics are disproportionately more likely to form and maintain relationships with one another and are relatively less likely to form and maintain relationships with members of their respective religious out‐groups. We close by outlining the implications of our findings and delineating promising avenues for future research.     

Is Conservative Religiousness Inherently Associated with Poorer Health for Sexual Minorities?

Results of path analysis involving sexual minority participants (N?=?1317) from diverse sociopolitical contexts revealed health outcomes to be associated with internalized homonegativity and the resolution of conflict between religious and sexual minority identities. Contrary to expectations, several markers of religiousness were not directly associated with either improved or worsened health outcomes for depression or anxiety. However, religious activity moderated the influence of internalized homonegativity (IH) on depression such that IH was less strongly related to depression among individuals who frequently attended religious services than among individuals who infrequently attended religious services. These findings have special salience for advancing a more accurate understanding of conservatively religious sexual minorities and directing culturally sensitive research, clinical services, and public policy.

     

Anxiety and Related Disorders and Concealment in Sexual Minority Young Adults

Sexual minorities face greater exposure to discrimination and rejection than heterosexuals. Given these threats, sexual minorities may engage in sexual orientation concealment in order to avoid danger. This social stigma and minority stress places sexual minorities at risk for anxiety and related disorders. Given that three fourths of anxiety disorder onset occurs before the age of 24, the current study investigated the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression in sexual minority young adults relative to their heterosexual peers. Secondarily, the study investigated sexual orientation concealment as a predictor of anxiety and related disorders. A sample of 157 sexual minority and 157 heterosexual young adults matched on age and gender completed self-report measures of the aforementioned disorders, and indicated their level of sexual orientation concealment. Results revealed that sexual minority young adults reported greater symptoms relative to heterosexuals across all outcome measures. There were no interactions between sexual minority status and gender, however, women had higher symptoms across all disorders. Sexual minority young women appeared to be at the most risk for clinical levels of anxiety and related disorders. In addition, concealment of sexual orientation significantly predicted symptoms of social phobia. Implications are offered for the cognitive and behavioral treatment of anxiety and related disorders in this population.     

Changes in Religiosity Among Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Emerging Adults

Highly religious Americans are relatively likely to oppose lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) rights and many churches are unwelcoming to sexual minorities, which may lead LGB Americans to retreat from religion. To assess this possibility, we investigate trajectories of religious change for sexual minorities and other emerging adults. We use two longitudinal data sources (National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and the National Study of Youth and Religion) to explore how sexuality predicts the likelihood of decreasing religiosity in emerging adulthood. Results show that three different operationalizations of sexual minority status—attraction, behavior, and identity—are each strongly and consistently associated with disaffiliating from religion and declines in religious service attendance. On the other hand, sexual minority status has inconsistent and relatively small associations with changes in prayer. We conclude by discussing how these results further understanding of religion, sexual identity, and the current generation of emerging adults.     

The Politics of Judicial Public Reason: Secular Interests and Religious Rights

This paper seeks a better understanding of the role of public reason in alimenting or defusing religious conflicts by looking at how courts apply it in deciding cases arising out of them. Recent scholarship and judicial decisions suggest, paradoxically, that courts can be biased towards either the secular or the religious. This risks alienating both religious majorities and religious and secular minorities. Judicial public reason is uniquely equipped to protect minorities, and its costs to religious majorities may be mitigated by accepting religious morality and identity claims in the political and legislative realm. Despite the political fragilities of judicial public reason, it is not intrinsically hostile to religious claims. It ought in fact to be fully equipped to recognize the equality and religious freedom rights that religious groups and individuals might assert in pursuing exemptions from general secular laws. Judicial public reason does have the potential to defuse religious conflicts, however much it falls short in practice.     

A WAY FORWARD FOR SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A REVIEW AND A RIFF

John Evans’s new book Morals Not Knowledge pushes scholars to rethink contemporary debates about religion and science by moving past the rhetoric of societal elites to examine the perspectives of everyday Americans, identifying the moral conflicts at the heart of debates. We review Evans’s key contributions while also extending and challenging his arguments, urging consideration of how renewed moral debates might be informed by a broader set of U.S. “publics.” Drawing on empirical research, we highlight four sets of voices that are missing from Evans’s analysis. Specifically, we highlight the voices of racial and ethnic minorities, religious communities (as opposed to individuals), members of minority religious traditions, and everyday religious scientists. Through doing so we offer avenues for future research on these diverse publics that will help facilitate a broader set of better and more informed debates about moral conflict between religious and scientific communities.     

Ideology,Prejudice, and Attitudes Toward Sexual Minority Social Policies and Organizations

This study tested the effects of multiple ideologies on support for restrictive policies against gay and lesbian individuals and organizations and if these effects were mediated by sexual prejudice. Social dominance orientation (SDO), conservatism, and right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) each had significant direct and indirect effects. SDO had the most consistent direct effects in addition to its effects through sexual prejudice. The direct effects of conservatism were smaller and similar in size to its indirect effects through prejudice. Although the direct effect of RWA was significant for policy attitudes, its effect was entirely mediated through sexual prejudice for organization opposition. Results suggest that high‐RWA individuals adopt their positions largely because of prejudice toward sexual minorities, while high‐SDO individuals adopt their positions partly out of prejudice and partly because these positions perpetuate hierarchies between heterosexuals and sexual minorities. Results also diminish the principled conservatism argument that conservative positions on these policies and organizations are absent of prejudice. As policies continue to be enacted that affect the sexual minority community, research is needed to identify the underlying motivations for individuals' positions toward these policies.     

Out on Campus: Sexual Orientation and Academic Climate in a University Context

Although lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students often come out in university settings, empirical studies have demonstrated that these environments are often hostile toward them. The current paper posits that such hostile contexts adversely affect their educational experiences. Results from a survey of a stratified random sample of 1,927 undergraduate and graduate students on a scale measuring perceptions of academic climate (General Campus Climate) supported this claim: LGB students had more negative perceptions of a variety of campus factors. In addition, a scale measuring perceptions of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Campus Climate found that LGB students were more likely than heterosexuals to perceive the campus as inhospitable to LGB people. Women and racial and ethnic minorities were also more likely to rate the LGB climate as hostile. Finally, data from two scales measuring attitudes believed to influence these perceptions yielded gender, racial/ethnic, religious, and sexual orientation differences in theoretically meaningful directions. Results indicate that LGB students often experience the university in more negative ways than heterosexual students, and that certain campus communities— particularly women and racial/ethnic minorities—are more aware of this negativity and contribute to it less because of their relatively more progay attitudes. Implications for how to improve LGB students' experiences are discussed.     

Slurs, Snubs, and Queer Jokes: Incidence and Impact of Heterosexist Harassment in Academia

Previous research has suggested that overt hostility against sexual minorities is associated with decrements in their well-being. However, subtler forms of heterosexism and their potential effects have been overlooked, heterosexuals have not been asked how they fare in a heterosexist environment, and no research has examined whether women and men might respond differently to heterosexism. Data from 3,128 northwestern US university students (representing all sexual orientations) address these gaps. Approximately 40% reported experiences of heterosexist harassment (HH) in the past year, and those who encountered both ambient and personal HH reported worse psychological and academic well-being than those who encountered no HH. Similar patterns of findings held for sexual minorities and heterosexuals, and for women and men. This paper is based on a presentation given at the American Psychological Association Convention in Toronto, Ontario in August 2003.     

A Phenomenological Study of Identifying as Lesbian,Gay and Bisexual in an Islamic Country

Ten adult Kuwaitis (four women and six men) who self-identified as being gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB) participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews examining their experience of being a sexual minority and living in a socially conservative Islamic country. The data were analyzed using interpretive phenomenology and yielded four primary themes including the role of religion and culture, risks, coping, and influential political factors. These themes help understand the ways in which LGB individuals in Kuwait integrate their sexual identity with religious and cultural factors and navigate a socially conservative society. The results of the study have implications for political and social policies in Kuwait, and for more culturally-sensitive models of sexual identity development among Arab populations.     

From Sodomy to Sympathy: LDS Elites’ Discursive Construction of Homosexuality Over Time

In this article, we examine how leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐Day Saints (LDS) discursively constructed homosexuality over the last 50 years. Based on textual analysis of LDS talks, magazines, and other publications, we analyze how LDS elites, responding to shifting historical, cultural, and religious interpretations of sexualities, discursively constructed homosexuality as problematic for (1) society from the 1950s to the 1990s, (2) the family from the 1970s to present, and (3) divinely inspired gender roles from the 1980s to present. Further, we show how LDS elites softened their rhetoric in the 1990s, and in so doing, established a new discursive construction of homosexuality as an ailment requiring sympathetic treatment. Throughout our analysis, we also examine how LDS elites accomplished such discursive work in response to shifting societal and religious attitudes concerning sexual minorities. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding how religious elites discursively construct sexual norms, the reciprocal relationship between sexual and religious discourse and advocacy, and the importance of examining how dominant religious discourses change over time.     

Sexuality and Religious Commitment Revisited: Exploring the Religious Commitments of Sexual Minorities, 1991–2014

Research on the religious commitments of sexual minorities has burgeoned over the last two decades, yet most studies come from small convenience samples of people actively engaged in religious groups. This study provides an empirical examination of the religiosity of people who report having had same‐sex relations in the last five years using respondents from the General Social Survey (1991–2014) and provides a comparison to respondents from 2008 to 2014 who report their sexual identification as bisexual, gay, or lesbian. All comparisons are made by gender, and compared with male and female heterosexuals. The relationship between behavioral sexuality and religiosity is examined across time periods, distinguishing respondents from 1991 to 2002 from respondents interviewed in 2004–2014. Religious factors examined include religious identification, religious participation, prayer frequency, beliefs about the Bible, beliefs about God, and belief in an afterlife. Multivariate models are estimated to examine whether sociodemographic factors contribute to differences across the gender/sexuality groups.     

Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain: A Quantitative Overview

This article presents a quantitative assessment of Catholic disaffiliates—those who were brought up Catholic, but who now no longer identify as such—in contemporary Britain. Using British Social Attitudes data, it seeks to: 1) gauge the overall extent of Catholic disaffiliation and its significance relative to the retention/disaffiliation rates of other major Christian groupings; 2) identify patterns in the changing rates of Catholic retention/disaffiliation over the course of the twentieth century; 3) analyse Catholic disaffiliation in terms of key demographic variables (sex and age); 4) compare the current religious beliefs and prayer practices of different groups of Catholic disaffiliates and retainees. As will be argued throughout this article, in-depth study of Catholic disaffiliates sheds important new light on the sociology of Catholicism in modern Britain. Furthermore, it contributes to ongoing discussions of secularisation, precisely as a case study of change over time within a significant religious minority.     

Building Buddhism in England: The Flourishing of a Minority Faith Heritage

From the earliest days of Buddhism in Britain, individuals and communities have sought out buildings to provide locations where they might practise and teach Buddhism. In this paper, we focus on this neglected area of the study of minority faith traditions in Britain. Our research, which was commissioned by Historic England, examines how Buddhist communities have used buildings and what this tells us about how a minority tradition is initially established and how it subsequently changes and develops. In this context, we suggest that buildings are more than bricks and mortar and provide a richly rewarding analytical lens to tell stories about migration, socio-economic status, religious diversity and integration and the complexity of processes around secularisation and religious change, as well shifting policy agendas in the UK that have begun to take faith seriously. This contributes to deepening the picture of the migration and adaptation of Buddhism and Buddhist practice across the globe.     

Parental Divorce and the “Switching” of Religious Identity

This article examines the impact of parental divorce on the likelihood that an individual has changed their religious identify. Using data from the National Survey of Family and Households, we use a theoretical framework of family structure and community ties to test the hypothesis that religious mobility is more likely among children of divorce compared to those from intact families. Distinguishing between parental divorce in childhood and parental divorce in adulthood allows us to assess the impact of parental divorce on religious socialization. For individuals raised as either moderate Protestant, conservative Protestant or Catholic, parental divorce increases the likelihood of both switching to another religion and apostasy. The impact of divorce is particularly strong for Catholics and conservative Protestants, who are, in general, less likely to be religious mobile. These findings add religious disaffiliation to the set of likely sequelae of parental divorce. In addition, the results of the study highlight the need to consider the relationship between family structure and religious processes in a community context.     

Losing My Religion as a Natural Experiment: How State Pressure and Taxes Led to Church Disaffiliations between 1940 and 2010 in Germany

The sociological literature has produced a remarkably consistent picture of the quantitative patterns of religious disaffiliations in Western countries. This article argues, and demonstrates, that strong changes in a social context may lead individuals to disaffiliate rapidly, leading to very different aggregate effects from those in the “western model.” We use the unique situation of the separation of Germany from 1949 to 1989 and its subsequent reunification as a “natural experiment” to show just how much the relationships routinely found can be disrupted under changed conditions. The state socialist “treatment” affected religious disaffiliations in East Germany profoundly as it (a) made disaffiliations 10 times more probable in the East than in the West in the 1950s and 1960s, (b) shielded East German church members from factors that led to mass disaffiliations in the West in the late 1960s and early 1970s, (c) reversed the education‐disaffiliation link in the East, thus making disaffiliation more likely among the less educated, and (d) led to an especially strong increase in disaffiliations in the East right after the reunification     

Sexual identity development in the context of compulsory heterosexuality

This study analyzed the implications of sexual identity development for global, political, religious, and occupational identity development in 358 college students. Participants completed a written survey packet including the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) and measures of sexual identity, physical/sexual preference, and emotional/affective preference. Data from the EOM-EIS suggest that having a sexual minority identity (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or "other" nonheterosexual identity) and reporting strong same-sex sexual or physical preferences are linked with more advanced global, political, religious, and occupational identity development. Heterosexual-identified participants were more likely to score high on identity foreclosure, moratorium, and diffusion, while sexual-minority-identified individuals scored higher on identity achievement. Individuals with strong same-sex physical/sexual preferences showed a pattern of results similar to those of sexual-minority-identified participants. Themes coded from a free-response question highlighted the finding that sexual-minority-identified participants more often viewed their sexual identity as salient and involving an effortful process. These individuals also stressed the importance of having support or modeling for their sexual identity.     

Shame in Sexual Minorities: Stigma,Internal Cognitions,and Counseling Considerations

Theorists, clinicians, and researchers have suggested that shame is a central concern in the lives of sexual minority individuals. Cognitive theorists believe that shame occurs when a person fails to achieve his or her standards, which are often based on social, cultural, and spiritual values. Although it is asserted that stigma causes shame among members of a sexual minority, the empirical evidence suggests that negative internal cognitions are partly responsible. By targeting negative beliefs, counselors can help sexual minorities reduce their sense of shame, particularly around issues related to sexual identity. The authors offer counseling strategies for reducing shame in sexual minority clients.     

“Leaving the Faith of Our Fathers”: Intergenerational Persistence and Class Cleavage of Evangelicals in Chile

Several studies have consistently linked the Evangelical breakdown in Latin America as a mass movement mainly adopted by impoverished working class individuals. However, little is known about how religious inheritance and recruitment of Evangelical movements is affected when status conditions improve along individuals trajectories. Using Bicentenario Survey from 2006 to 2010 we analyze how intergenerational patterns of religious persistence in Chile relate to individuals’ educational attainment and intergenerational mobility. Two mechanisms are evaluated: first, the intergenerational persistence of Evangelicals compared to Catholics and “None’s”; and second, the probability of conversion or reaffiliation to Evangelical Protestantism. Multinomial regression analysis shows that the greater an individual’s educational credentials and upward mobility, the lesser their identification with Evangelical movements, regardless of their religious affiliation or educational attainment of origin. This evidence suggests there are obstacles for Evangelical movements’ vertical mobility, which could be related to Chile’s strong social cleavage in terms of religion.     

Workplace harassment: double jeopardy for minority women

To date there have been no studies of how both sex and ethnicity might affect the incidence of both sexual and ethnic harassment at work. This article represents an effort to fill this gap. Data from employees at 5 organizations were used to test whether minority women are subject to double jeopardy at work, experiencing the most harassment because they are both women and members of a minority group. The results supported this prediction. Women experienced more sexual harassment than men, minorities experienced more ethnic harassment than Whites, and minority women experienced more harassment overall than majority men, minority men, and majority women.