Ayoub, Phillip M. (2018). Protean Power in Movement: Navigating Uncertainty in the LGBT Rights Revolution, in: Katzenstein, Peter J./Seybert, Lucia A. (eds.): Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 79–99, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/protean-power/protean-power-in-movement-navigating-uncertainty-in-the-lgbt-rights-revolution/127FF35DC2D818AD22F5005844187098
Why do some Christian colleges and universities approve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups and inclusive nondiscrimination policies while others resist them? Scholars are beginning to develop models to explain LGBT inclusion in schools, but they have undertheorized the role of religion in facilitating or impeding LGBT inclusion. In this article, I draw from the literature on religion and the "culture wars," especially insights into religions' theological orientations, to explain Christian colleges and universities' inclusion of LGBT students. I show that communal orientations—theological emphases on social justice—strongly predict the adoption of LGBT groups and inclusive nondiscrimination policies at Christian colleges and universities. By contrast, individualist orientations—theological emphases on personal piety—impede the adoption of such groups and policies. Importantly, I find little support for alternative explanations of Christian colleges and universities' inclusion of LGBT students that focus on liberal or conservative teachings on same-sex relationships. Beyond bridging literatures on the political sociology of LGBT rights and religion and the culture wars, the article supports an emerging theoretical framework for understanding the role of religion in a wide range of social justice debates.
At the time of writing, all three elements that are evoked in the title – emancipation and social inclusion of sexual minorities, labour and labour activism, and the idea and substance of "Europe" – are being invested by deep, long-term, and – to varied degrees – radical processes of social transformation. The meaning of words like "equality", "rights", "inclusion", and even "democracy" is as precarious and uncertain as are the lives of those European citizens who are marginalised by intersecting conditions of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class – in a constellation of precarities that is both unifying and fragmented (fragmenting). Conflicts are played, in hidden or explicit ways, over material processes of redistribution as well as discursive practices that revolve around these words. Against this backdrop, and roughly ten years after the European Union provided an input for institutional commitment to the protection of LGBT* workers' rights with the Council Directive 2000/78/EC, the dissertation contrasts discourses on workplace equality for LGBT* persons produced by a plurality of actors, seeking to identify values, semantics, and agendas framing and informing organisations' views and showing how each actor has incorporated LGBT* rights into its own discourse, each time in a way that is functional to the construction and/or confirmation of its organisational identity: transnational union networks, by presenting LGBT* rights as a natural, neutral commitment within the framework of universal human rights protection; left-wing organisations, by collocating activism for LGBT* rights within a wider project of social emancipation that is for all the marginalised, yet is not neutral, but attached to specific values and opposed to specific political adversaries (the right-wing, the nationalists); business networks, by acknowledging diversity as a path to better performance and profits, thus encouraging inclusion and non-discrimination of "deserving" LGBT* workers.
In: Rights for All? Sexual Orientation, Religious Traditions, and the Challenge of Inclusion The Center for International Human Rights, John Jay College, City University of New York, February 2015
This article discusses the case of refugees who are LGBT, and the possible grounds for using LGBT status as a basis for prioritizing LGBT persons in refugee admissions. I argue that those states most willing and able to protect LGBT persons against a variety of (also) non-asylum-grounding injustices have strong moral reasons to admit and prioritize refugees with LGBT status over non-LGBT refugees in refugee admissions. These states – typically, Western liberal democracies – are uniquely positioned to provide effective protection for refugees who are LGBT, owing to the failures of other, also refugee receiving, states to do so. The case for prioritizing refugees with LGBT status is built upon two interrelated factors. First, on the specific vulnerability of LGBT persons to a variety of (also) non-asylum-grounding injustices, and second, on the relatively low number of countries that are both willing and able to protect LGBT persons against such injustices.
AbstractThis paper examines the history of the LGBT + movement in Chile, the opposition to LGBT + rights, and the general state of public opinion. This should set us up to see how strong of an actor these social movement organizations, what their desires are, and how well equipped they are to take on the opposition. Second, we will consider the legal status quo of same‐sex unions. Does the Constitution take a stand on it or must we look elsewhere in the law to see how marriage is defined? Moreover, this should also tell us if we can use all three branches of government to change the law. The next section of the paper will methodically examine the power and preferences of actors in all three branches of government. Who has the power to change the law for same‐sex partnership recognition? Finally, this paper explains why the presidency played a key role in passing civil union legislation, but there is still reason to be skeptical that marriage or adoption rights will be recognized anytime soon.