Views on Christian privilege and the role that Christianity should play in society help explain the link between conservatism and opposition to LGBT rights, according to new research published in the American Journal of Community Psychology.
“Although same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in the United States, there continues to be problems with employment discrimination, housing discrimination and other types of discrimination against sexual and gender minorities,” said study author Nathan R. Todd, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“One of the key barriers to those rights has been opposition from some Christian and political conservatives. Thus, we wanted to conduct a study to shed light on factors that may help to explain this opposition. Specifically, we focused on participant’s take on Christian power and influence in society. We selected these factors to better understand the associations between Christianity, attitudes about political and social power, and opposition to sexual and gender minority rights.”
“We also hope that this research will broadly contribute to the ongoing debates in society regarding the interface of Christianity, politics, and sexual and gender minority rights. One study will not solve these debates, but we hope that our focus on Christian power and influence will spark constructive dialogue by promoting a broader understanding of the relationship between Christianity, politics, and sexual and gender minority rights,” Todd explained.
The study, based on responses from 1,015 heterosexual university students who were between 18 and 25 years old, found that unawareness of Christian privilege and support for Christian power in society helped to explain the link between religious/political conservatism and opposition to sexual- and gender-minority rights.
In other words, conservative participants were more likely to agree with statements about Christians being the dominant group in power in society, such as “Christianity should be the norm in this society.” Also, conservative participants were more likely to disagree with statements acknowledging Christian privilege in society, such as “Christianity is valued more in this society than other religions.” Both of these attitudes about Christian dominance and privilege were associated with opposition to protecting gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals with anti-discrimination laws as well as opposition to allowing gays and lesbians to marry and adopt children.
“We hope that the average person takes away the idea that greater support for Christians being the dominant group in power in the U.S. helps to explain why some Christian conservatives and political conservatives oppose sexual- and gender-minority rights,” Todd told PsyPost.
The findings also highlight that “there is a lot of diversity within Christianity, and that not all Christians think or act the same in relation to support for sexual and gender minority rights,” he added.
The researchers even found similar findings among non-religious students, which “demonstrates the impact of Christian hegemony and power is not limited to conservative Christians, but also functions in larger society to reinforce Christian and conservative political power.”
But the study includes some limitations, such as its cross-sectional methodology with a college student sample. “We only demonstrated associations among our variables, thus we cannot say anything about causality or how variables may influence one another,” Todd said.
“We grouped different sexual and gender minority rights into one composite variable; future research should examine if findings are similar or different depending on the specific type of sexual and gender minority right being considered.”
Previous research has found that religious opposition to same-sex marriage is linked to both conservative preferences to maintain the status quo and negative attitudes towards sexual and gender minorities. But there is still much to learn about the issue.
“Our findings do point to interesting questions for future research. For example, what is the process of how individual’s attitudes about Christian power and influence change over time, and how do shifts in these attitudes relate to shifts in opposition for other social issues such as sexual and gender minority rights? Also, more work is needed to capture the voices and experiences of sexual and gender minorities to understand the multiple ways they are affected by Christian power and influence in society,” Todd said.
The study, “Christian and Political Conservatism Predict Opposition to Sexual and Gender Minority Rights through Support for Christian Hegemony“, was authored by Nathan R. Todd, Jacqueline Yi, Emily J. Blevins, Elizabeth A. McConnell, Yara Mekawi, and Brett A. Boeh Bergmann
