Queering Religious : An Exploration of British Nonheterosexual
Christians’ and Muslims’ Strategy of Constructing Sexuality-affirming
Hermeneutics
While acknowledging that homosexuality is indeed portrayed negatively in some parts of religious texts, the participants critique traditional hermeneutics by highlighting its inaccuracy and socio-cultural specificity, and arguing for a contextualized and culturally-relevant interpretation. Queering religious texts, therefore, has a de-stabilizing effect, through the transgression and de-construction of naturalized and normalized hermeneutics, which reinforces heteronormativity. Christians and Muslims acknowledge that homosexuality is presented in a negative light in some parts of religious texts.
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Yip, 1997), some discard religion altogether in order to reduce or resolve the psychological dissonance generated by the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between their sexuality and religious faith (e.g. Mahaffy, 1996; Safra Project, 2002). Some also refrain from ‘practicing’ their sexuality through, among others, spiritual assistance from the so-called ‘ex-gay movement’ (e.g. Naz Project, 2000; Ponticelli, 1996). Others attempt to minimize stigmatization by distancing themselves from religious communities but still keeping their religious faith through privatized practices such as prayer (e.g. Yip, 2000). Christianity and Islam are scriptural religions with written texts as the lynchpin of their teachings on, inter alia, sexual morality (e.g. Parrinder, 1996; Ridgeon, 2003). Thus, religious texts constitute the primary, though not exclusive, basis for the censure of homosexuality. Evidently, Christians and Muslims engage with such alternative theological material to undermine the basis of the traditional interpretation that stigmatizes homosexuality. Significantly, they do not challenge the content of the religious texts, thus respecting their sanctity. However, they contest the accuracy and therefore the hegemony of the traditional interpretation of such texts. Through this, they construct themselves as victims (and indeed survivors) of religious ignorance and