In Law, Religion and Homosexuality, the authors offer a novel study of the ways in which religion has influenced, and continues to influence, legislation affecting the lives of gay men and lesbians. The writers trace this connection by examining the role of religious discourse in the making of statutory law by the UK Parliament. Specifically, they chart the tone of that discourse, assessing its evolution through the various discursive strategies employed by religion in debates on laws relating to homosexuality. In this task, the book necessarily concentrates on what parliamentarians say about religion and homosexuality (although the text also provides occasional references to external faith-based interventions by different communities and organisations). Accordingly, Hansard is frequently and meticulously cited to illustrate the nature of parliamentary discussion. Nevertheless, the focus on individual actors should not obscure the primary aim, which is to acquire useful evidence of how religious parliamentary dialogue cumulatively impacts upon the eventual formulation of key legislation concerning sexual orientation.
The book pursues a thematic approach, avoiding a simple chronological survey of changes to laws on homosexuality as related to religious discourse. This strategy allows the writers to select discrete areas of law in each chapter as examples of instances where religious narratives have shaped the relevant legislation. Such a method is preferred because it avoids a totalising historical account of legislative change, which could deflect attention from the complex interplay in the relationship between law, religion and homosexuality. A range of religious discursive techniques appear repeatedly across these case studies and this gives the writers an opportunity to interrogate that tripartite relationship across the various chapters. It also allows them to show that there has never been a singular or unified religious view about homosexuality among legislators.
Chapter 1 begins by tracking the history of the relationship between religion and legal control of private homosexual sex. The authors investigate this from the thirteenth to the mid-twentieth century before, logically, beginning their substantive analysis of parliamentary discourse with two long-standing regulatory issues: decriminalisation of male homosexual acts and the male homosexual age of consent (both of which featured on the legal agenda from the 1960s to the early 2000s). In contrast to subsequent chapters, which analyse the ‘rolling out’ of law to facilitate sexual-orientation equality, this chapter looks at the ‘rolling back’ of law to achieve such equality. It is striking how religious discourse seems so openly condemnatory of homosexuality in these parliamentary debates – particularly those from the 1960s to the 1990s. Indeed, religious individuals only ever appear in favour of decriminalisation so as to encourage the harnessing of more favourable social conditions in which a Christian morality could subsequently be used to actively discourage homosexuality. The hostility of this discourse is also rhetorically self-sufficient: there is no expectation that it be justified or rationalised. Given this atmosphere, it is unsurprising that decriminalisation and equalisation of the age of consent remained live political matters until the start of the twenty-first century.
Significantly, by Chapter 2 a more progressive social view of homosexuality begins to challenge this self-sufficient rhetoric. At the beginning of the twenty-first century it became clear that religion must explain its opposition to the role of homosexuality in shaping family law: in particular religion and same-sex parenting. This was manifested through religious recourse to scientific evidence about parenting in mixed and same-sex families, assertions about the importance of the traditional family model and reliance on morality as a barrier to promoting assisted contraception.
While this strategy was ultimately unsuccessful in influencing same-sex parenting laws, it was accompanied by religious awareness of a developing equalities discourse in the arenas of law and politics. This heralded a religious discursive shift from morality to equality in challenging legislation designed to protect homosexuals. Significantly, there is adoption by religion of equalities language to defend religious interests and avoid perceived discrimination, especially in the balancing of religious interests as against those relating to homosexuality. Chapter 3 notes how this reframing approach was successful in securing religious exceptions from equality legislation on grounds of sexual orientation in employment and provision of goods and services – even though this seemingly generated a protection hierarchy whereby the interests of religion supervened those of homosexuals. This questions whether the exceptions excessively diluted the aim of the original legislation to which they applied. Such issues continue to appear in Chapter 4, which discusses sexual orientation equality in the form of provisions concerning civil partnership and same-sex marriage, which were similarly affected by special treatment for religion by way of exceptions. Chapter 5 extends this idea by examining how religion has been successful in negotiating changes to homophobic hate speech laws which limit protection for homosexuals.
Chapter 6, which assesses religion's influence on homosexuality and state education, presents the final legislative case study in the book. As with Chapter 1, it includes an important contextual section – notably on the creation and legacy of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It is apparent that within the boundaries of sex education and schooling, religion continues to exert a moral influence; this extends to the national curriculum and, of course, the teachings of faith schools.
This is a well-researched and highly interesting book which straddles a variety of disciplines – primarily sociology, law and politics. It is clearly written and certainly accessible to non-specialists in those fields. The authors make a clear and persuasive case that religion, as articulated in various forms by parliamentary figures, has had a long-lasting effect on the expansion of laws protecting homosexuality. The writers do not purport to situate their findings in a broader framework concerned with religion's place and influence in public life; arguably, reflection on these factors might have drawn together the conclusion's brief (three-page) outline of the book's findings. Nonetheless, Law, Religion and Homosexuality offers a revealing insight into the writing, and re-writing, of laws relating to homosexuals in the name of religion. It is a thought-provoking contribution to scholarly debates on the accommodation of religion by law in matters of sexual orientation.
