Queering ESOL: towards a cultural politics of LGBT issues in the ESOL classroom
Seminar 4: Religion and sexual diversity
This seminar focused on religion and sexual diversity. It began with Mike Baynham reminding
us of how an informal online discussion about LGBTQI and ESOL lead to the creation of the
Queering ESOL seminars. He told us that during these discussions, despite the measured nature
of the debate at first, it quickly moved to include a discussion on the impact of ESOL and
religion. In particular, some argued that religion has been used as the basis for homophobia in a
number of contexts and that this is sometimes translated into the ESOL classroom. Many
contributors to the online debate highlighted that LGBTQI is not a belief and that people have a
right not to be discriminated against. What this interaction showed is the uneasiness of religion
and LGBTQI within ESOL and how many assume that they are both mutually exclusive. Mike
suggested though that, despite the contradictions, there are many LGBTQI people of belief, and
that they are beginning to claim a space within their faiths, some noting that by doing so they
feel they are speaking back to their religion, helping them get closer to their faiths and indeed
helping them reimagine who they are.
Session 1: Gill Valentine & Louise Waite: Negotiating Difference through Everyday
Encounters – The case of Sexual Orientation and Religion and Belief.
In the first session of the day, Gill Valentine and Louise Waite looked at how sexual orientation
and religion and belief intersect to extend common beliefs on how ‘difference’ is negotiated in
everyday encounters. Their research is undertaken from a social geographical perspective,
particularly looking at the concept of ‘micropublics’, but many of the insights gained from it can
be of use to ESOL students and teachers. They stated that ‘difference’ is under-researched in
marginalised groups and one particular reason for that was due to the fact that the nine protected
characteristics (mentioned in previous seminars) are frequently grouped together and therefore
researched together. Gill and Louise argued that there is a need to be more attentive to the
tensions that lie between these protected groups in everyday encounters and as such they
conducted a number of focus groups and compared opinions obtained from Christian, Muslim,
Hindu and Jewish faith groups about the theme of sexual orientation. They hypothesised that the
social normalisation of homosexuality would be a challenge for many heterosexual people of
faith due to the unchanging nature of religion, and expected to find tensions emerging between
individuals of religion/belief and lesbians and gay men. However, they found that everyday
encounters are not producing these anticipated tensions and in fact they noticed that individuals
are creating strategies which allow them to separate their religious beliefs from everyday conduct
through their religions’ ethical groundings of care and compassion. They also found that many
faith groups believe that sexuality is essentially a private practice, meaning that they could ‘turn a
blind eye’ to it. So, although conflict was less likely to manifest itself between individuals in
everyday public spaces, they did find that this was not always the case when their research moved
into the debate about group rights in public spheres. That said, the impact of the changing sociolegal landscape of sexuality, where same sex couples can have civil partnerships and get married,
appears to have had an interesting effect on the perspectives of some people of faith. It was
suggested that since homosexual couples were appearing to embrace the traditional
heteronormative values of ‘marriage’, such as commitment, monogamy and family, this meant
that for many, married and partnered gays and lesbians were becoming less of a threat to them.
A further aspect of their research highlighted a further area of conflict: between LGBT people of
faith and with no faith. They found that LGBT people of faith adopt strategies which allow them
to carve out a space for themselves within their religious communities which may be traditionally
hostile to them. This could either be through seeking out liberal faith communities within their
own communities, or through prioritising their personal experience/relationship with their faith
rather than the institution itself. They also found that religiophobia exists within the LGBT
community as some secular gays see LGBT members of faith groups as being complicit to
creating the negative feeling towards homosexuality.
Session 2: Adriaan Van Klinken. Queer Love in a Christian Nation – Politicising and
Negotiating Religion and Homosexuality in Zambia
In the second session, Adriaan Van Klinken examined the complex relationship of ‘Queer Love’
within the self-proclaimed ‘Christian’ nation of Zambia. Drawing on his PhD research, he told
us that homosexuality in Zambia is considered un-African and un-Christian, a threat to the moral
order of the country, and as such is very much in the political discourse of the country. He
highlighted that this was clearly demonstrated in the 2011 general election campaign where the
ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMDP) used homosexuality to claim that the
country’s Christian nation status would be at risk if the opposition political party, The Patriotic
Front (the PF), won the general elections. In the end, the PF won and there was no repeal of the
Christian-nation preamble to the constitution. It was also used when the UN General Secretary,
Ban Ki Moon, visited the country and urged the government to respect the rights of sexual
minorities. Adriaan explained that the key argument is that only heteronormative family values
are acceptable and indeed both the state and the Church in Zambia have come together to
publically reject homosexuality and have proclaimed that they will never recognise it. Despite this
emboldened stance, many in Zambia highlight the hypocrisy of the Christian nation status and
argue that Christianity itself is un-African as it is a western import. Not only that, anti-gay laws in
the country are also un-African since they too were introduced by the west through colonialism.
Despite this, there is a movement to ensure that the ‘Christ-like’ attitudes of love and respect are
used to embrace homosexuality and indeed the contradiction exists whereby many LGBTQI in
Zambia are said to be proudly, happily and deeply religious. In this context, we once again see
that LGBTQI are able to reconcile their sexuality and religious faith by redefining it and in the
case of Zambia, whose approach to Christianity is through the Pentecostal Church, which
focusses on the relationship between the church and the individual, they show that they are able
to reclaim a space within it.
Session 3: Rusi Jaspal. “I never faced up to being gay” – accounts of managing religious,
ethnic and sexual identities among British South Asian gay men.
Rusi Jaspal gave a talk on the psychological perspective of identity and in particular how sexual
identity is formed among British South Asian (BSA) gay men. He stated from the beginning of
his talk that much research has already been conducted on how LGBTQI find a space within
their religious spheres (see previous sessions), but his research developed on that to consider the
processes involved in constructing identity among BSA gay men and how that identity is
threatened or affirmed. The denomination of BSA gay men refers to British Pakistanis and
British Indians and the reason he considered this group is because of the strength of the religious
identity (Muslim, Hindu and Sikh) within them. He compared how homosexuality is seen within
the three faith groups and concluded that although it is seen as being fundamentally negative in
mainstream Islam, this is not the case in Hinduism and Sikhism where there is no explicit
statement regarding homosexuality. That said, Rusi explained that some confusing signals do
exist within the case of Hinduism, and claims have been made in the case of Sikhism that
homosexuality is ‘inconsistent’ with their beliefs. In looking at how BSA gay men reconcile their
religious, ethnic and sexual identities, Rusi has created a model of identity construction, and
looked at its intersection with threats and coping. He believes that as identity construction is
guided by culturally specific principles, those principles can exist on many levels within multiple
groups of identities. He told us that if those principles are jeopardised, then the perceptions of
identity are threatened. He identified a number of themes in his study which pertain to how
BSA gay men perceive and cognitively manage their identities. These included for example, the
perception of mutual exclusivity of identities (‘being gay’ and ‘cannot be gay’), and the threatened
identity coherence (‘I know I’m going to hell but I can’t help it’). There was also the anticipation
of a change in relations (e.g. ‘not being the same son’) and the attribution of sexuality to
Britishness (e.g. ‘I’m gay because I was born in Britain’), i.e. attributing homosexuality to an
external source. Interestingly, Rusi argued that homosexuality can also heighten a person’s
religious identity by what he calls ‘hyper-affiliation’, whereby extreme religious diligence is
observed in adhering to religious acts, e.g. in time of fasting (in Islam). In terms of marriage, it
can be used as a coping strategy claiming that ‘being gay is a phase and marriage will make them
straight’, and by doing so they will remove themselves from the threat to their identity. However,
what was clear from Rusi’s research is that although coming out may be a positive psychological
step in sexual identity development, it may not ultimately be a positive experience.
Session 4: Omar Shahid. It’s time to come out – accepting homosexuals into the Muslim
community
In the final session of the day, Omar Shahid argued that it is time for Muslim homosexuals to
come out in order to help create a positive accepting environment for themselves. He accepted
that many gay Muslims still suffer from stigma and alienation, but claimed that only hard-line
Muslims reject homosexuality within Islam; that, in actual fact, Sharia is only concerned with
public acts and, therefore, what happens in private is between ‘the man and God’ (sic). He
explained that the Ottoman Empire decriminalised homosexuality 100 years before the UK and
US did, and also even in the classical Muslim era, homosexuals lived with ‘minimal’ instances of
prosecution because historically homosexuality was not considered an act against religion, but as
a psychological illness. Despite this, gay Muslims still face a great deal of persecution and
marginalisation within the Muslim community and he feels that this lack of openness and
interaction breeds animosity. He highlighted that any discussion of homosexuality is considered a
challenge to the ‘calibration of the faith’, i.e. the concept that keeps the religion pure, and
therefore any suggestion of a change to that calibration is referred to as ‘bid’ah’, a heretical
innovt5ation. But once again, despite the apparent negativities of Islam towards homosexuality
and the continued persecution and marginalisation that some LGBTQI suffer, Omar told us that
some gay men are still converting to Islam, and are able to find a space within their new faith. He
went further by informing the seminar about some within Islam who aim to build on that by
creating a welcoming space for all people of Muslim faith through the ‘Inclusive Mosques
Initiative’. This idea is still in its infancy but has an ambitious plan to expand internationally. In
concluding his talk, Omar asked whether there can be real change in Islam and stated his own
belief that it will be possible both only through the creation of the role of a grand mufti in the
UK who actively encourages acceptance of gays into Islam.
Joe Fagan, University of York