Religion,Contact, and Ambivalent Attitudes Toward the Rights of Gays and Lesbians in Barbados

ABSTRACT

Over 70 countries in the world currently carry anti-gay laws, among which is Barbados, a small English-speaking Caribbean island. This study evaluates whether heterosexuals in Barbados are consistent or ambivalent in their attitudes toward anti-gay law reform and the extent to which competing messages from interpersonal contact and religion affect ambivalence. The analysis revealed that a majority of heterosexuals hold ambivalent attitudes about gay and lesbian rights. Moreover, results from a multinomial logistic regression imply that Barbadians whose views on sexuality were theologically based were less likely to support restrictions on same-sex intimacy when they have a close relationship with a gay man or lesbian. However, this decline in support for the laws brought about by meaningful contact did not translate to support for gay and lesbian rights among the religiously inclined. Rather, it manifested itself as a state of attitudinal ambivalence.     

A Study of Attitudes Towards Gays and Lesbians in the State of Utah,U.S.A.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine Utahans' attitudes towards gay and lesbian people and their civil rights. Utah politics are dominated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and the Republican Party, with membership typically shared by the two. However, Mormon sociocultural values are also distinctively pro-family and companionate. We wondered to what extent caring, warmth, and inclusiveness toward family members mitigated against the doctrinaire injunction to reject homosexuality and, if necessary, to reject family members who were homosexual.

We found that proponents of gay and lesbian civil rights were likely to be personally familiar with gays and lesbians, to have empathetic attitudes about gay and lesbian youth and being out, and to possess a commitment to legal rights for gay and lesbian individuals and families. Opponents of gay and lesbian civil rights were driven by moralistic imperatives about sexuality and the roots of sexual behavior, made a sharp distinction between what they perceived as social privileges and legally mandated rights and were not likely to have had much direct contact with gay and lesbian people. Our results suggest that Utahans indeed appear to be torn, or at best ambivalent, about the religious mandate to condemn homosexuality while at the same time prizing family ties and relationships above other values. For the same reasons, political actions directed at obtaining specific legal rights for gays and lesbians appear to have more support than expected, especially in the realms of partner benefits, employment discrimination, health benefits, and private freedoms. Legal marriage, however, is soundly rejected as a possibility, especially in view of the belief that marriage is sacred and exclusively for heterosexuals.     

From Fragmentation to Integration

Abstract

Within the mental health field, there is an increased attention to issues of diversity. However, this awareness has not yet been applied to racially and culturally diverse gays and lesbians who are chronically mentally ill. Some of the reasons for this include the long history of homogeneity of American institutions; the underutilization of mental health services by minority groups; the stigmatization of the mentally ill; and homophobia, within both the psychiatric community and society at large. As a result, there is a need for mental health professionals to acknowledge minority gays and lesbians with chronic mental illness, and begin to provide programs that affirm their sexual orientation, race, and cultural identities.     

Economic Rights,Economic Myths,and Economic Realities

Summary

Although the myth is that gay and lesbian people, especially gay men, are affluent and are faring well in the workplace, research shows that they in fact experience wage discrimination and lack many other fundamental rights related to employment. This article reviews the literature addressing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgend-ered people as workers, showing the ways in which their economic rights are still compromised in the United States today. The social work profession must understand these realities and seek ways to address them.     

Sexual identities and participation in liberal and conservative social movements

The desire for social change, political activism, and sexual identities may all be related. Lesbians and gays generally contest heterosexism more than heterosexuals but we do not know how sexual identities sways participation in class, race, and gender based social movements. When analyzing the American National Election Surveys of 2012 (n = 3519), gays and lesbians were about twenty times more likely to join LGB justice campaigns than heterosexuals. Moreover, the greater activism of gays and lesbians also crossed over to recent Occupy Wall Street, peace, and environmental mobilizations. Finally, this analysis ends with logistic regressions that determine if any sexual identity gaps in movement participation are the result of demographic, contextual, and ideological covariates.     

African American Gay Men and Lesbians: Examining the Complexity of Gay Identity Development

Abstract

This article addresses the concept of gay and lesbian identity development with respect to African American gay men and lesbians. The authors suggest that the integration of one's gay identity and the coming out process are uniquely constructed for African American gay men and lesbians, who may be multiply challenged by racial prejudice, limited acceptance by the African American community, and a lack of integration into the larger, White gay community. Race, African American culture, a continuum of gay cultures, gender, and individual characteristics are suggested as salient variables that distinguish the gay identity experience of African American gays from that proposed by most gay identity models.     

Development of Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Scale for Indians (AHSI)

Attitudes toward homosexuality vary across cultures, with the legal and societal position being rather complicated in India. This study describes the process of developing and validating a Likert-type scale to assess attitudes toward homosexuality among heterosexuals. Phase 1 describes the development of the scale. Items were written based on thematic analysis of narratives generated from 50 college students and reviewing existing scales. After administering the 70-item scale to 68 participants, item analysis yielded 20 statements with item-total correlations over .70. Cronbach’s alpha was .97. In Phase 2, the 20-item Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Scale for Indians (AHSI) was administered to 142 participants. Analysis yielded a corrected split-half correlation of .91. Further, AHSI discriminated between women and men; between liberal arts and STEM/business students; and those who reported interpersonal contact with gay men and lesbian women and those who did not. The scale has satisfactory reliability and shows promising construct validity.