{"title":"On Hating the Sin but Loving the Sinner: Judgments about Homosexuality and Religiosity","authors":"Douglas S. Krull","doi":"10.1037/e566962012-323","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Consider the following scenario. Suppose Dave is a religious person who takes his faith very seriously and believes that all people should be treated with kindness and respect. However, Dave also believes that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. One day a new co-worker, Ron, is hired at the office where Dave works and Dave learns that Ron identifies himself as gay and is involved in a relationship with another man. How will Dave react? In addition, what will the other co-workers expect from Dave? Will they expect Dave to treat Ron with kindness and respect or will they expect Dave to make disrespectful comments about Ron and perhaps even behave aggressively toward him?The early work on religiosity and prejudice focused primarily on racial prejudice (e.g., Allport & Ross, 1967), but in the last 30 years research has also addressed how religious people think about and behave toward gay and lesbian people. As one might expect, considerable research suggests that religiosity, operationalized in a variety of ways, is associated with negative views of homosexuality (e.g., Fisher, Derison, Polley, Cadman & Johnston, 1994; Gilad & Stepanova, 2015; Herek, 1987; Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005; Kirkpatrick, 1993; Mellinger & Levant, 2014; Wilkinson & Roys, 2005). In a meta-analysis by Whitley (2009), selfratings of religiosity, fundamentalism, intrinsic religiosity, Christian orthodoxy, and frequency of religious service attendance were all associated with negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. It should also be noted that the negative relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward gay men and lesbians is not limited to a single country, but has been found in many nations around the world, including Turkey (Sarac, 2015), Jamaica (West & Cowell, 2015), Malaysia (Ng, Yee, Subramaniam, Loh, & Moreira, 2015), Greece (Papadaki, Plotnikof, Gioumidou, Zisimou, & Papadaki, 2015), Australia (Patrick, Heywood, Simpson, Pitts, Richters, Shelley, & Smith, 2013), Poland (Kossowska, Czernatowicz, & Sekerdej, 2017), Singapore (Detenber, Cenite, Ku, Ong, Tong, & Yeow, 2007), Israel (Eick, Rubinstein, Hertz, & Slater, 2016), and Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, and Chile (Chaux & Le, 2016); indeed, Jackle and Wenzelburger (2015) found that religiosity was negatively related to attitudes toward homosexuality in 79 nations included in the World Values Survey, although some religious groups (e.g., Muslims) were more negative than others (e.g., Buddhists).In addition, Tsang and Rowatt (2007) found that intrinsic religiosity-trying to live in accordance with one's faith-was also associated with implicit negative views of homosexuality, and Duck and Hunsberger (1999) found that when participants viewed racism as proscribed (i.e., taught against) by their religious community, negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians were viewed as nonproscribed. Moreover, consistent with the predictions of Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993), intrinsic religiosity was associated with lower levels of racism, but higher levels of prejudice against homosexuals (Duck & Hunsberger, 1999). Thus, like Dave in the opening vignette, many religious people view homosexuality as morally wrong and so seem to have negative views of gay and lesbian people.However, as a growing number of researchers have recognized, it is important to distinguish between judgments about a person's behavior and judgments about the person. Like Dave, religious people might regard homosexual behavior as morally wrong, but might regard gay men and lesbians as people who should be treated with kindness and respect. Are people able to make this distinction? Are they able to, as is often said, hate the sin, but love the sinner? The results are mixed. To illustrate, in one wellknown study (Batson, Floyd, Meyer, & Winner, 1999), introductory psychology participants had the opportunity to help a student (or so it seemed) win a $30 prize, but the details varied. …","PeriodicalId":16908,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Psychology and Christianity","volume":"60 1","pages":"99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Psychology and Christianity","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/e566962012-323","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
Consider the following scenario. Suppose Dave is a religious person who takes his faith very seriously and believes that all people should be treated with kindness and respect. However, Dave also believes that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. One day a new co-worker, Ron, is hired at the office where Dave works and Dave learns that Ron identifies himself as gay and is involved in a relationship with another man. How will Dave react? In addition, what will the other co-workers expect from Dave? Will they expect Dave to treat Ron with kindness and respect or will they expect Dave to make disrespectful comments about Ron and perhaps even behave aggressively toward him?The early work on religiosity and prejudice focused primarily on racial prejudice (e.g., Allport & Ross, 1967), but in the last 30 years research has also addressed how religious people think about and behave toward gay and lesbian people. As one might expect, considerable research suggests that religiosity, operationalized in a variety of ways, is associated with negative views of homosexuality (e.g., Fisher, Derison, Polley, Cadman & Johnston, 1994; Gilad & Stepanova, 2015; Herek, 1987; Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005; Kirkpatrick, 1993; Mellinger & Levant, 2014; Wilkinson & Roys, 2005). In a meta-analysis by Whitley (2009), selfratings of religiosity, fundamentalism, intrinsic religiosity, Christian orthodoxy, and frequency of religious service attendance were all associated with negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. It should also be noted that the negative relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward gay men and lesbians is not limited to a single country, but has been found in many nations around the world, including Turkey (Sarac, 2015), Jamaica (West & Cowell, 2015), Malaysia (Ng, Yee, Subramaniam, Loh, & Moreira, 2015), Greece (Papadaki, Plotnikof, Gioumidou, Zisimou, & Papadaki, 2015), Australia (Patrick, Heywood, Simpson, Pitts, Richters, Shelley, & Smith, 2013), Poland (Kossowska, Czernatowicz, & Sekerdej, 2017), Singapore (Detenber, Cenite, Ku, Ong, Tong, & Yeow, 2007), Israel (Eick, Rubinstein, Hertz, & Slater, 2016), and Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, and Chile (Chaux & Le, 2016); indeed, Jackle and Wenzelburger (2015) found that religiosity was negatively related to attitudes toward homosexuality in 79 nations included in the World Values Survey, although some religious groups (e.g., Muslims) were more negative than others (e.g., Buddhists).In addition, Tsang and Rowatt (2007) found that intrinsic religiosity-trying to live in accordance with one's faith-was also associated with implicit negative views of homosexuality, and Duck and Hunsberger (1999) found that when participants viewed racism as proscribed (i.e., taught against) by their religious community, negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians were viewed as nonproscribed. Moreover, consistent with the predictions of Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993), intrinsic religiosity was associated with lower levels of racism, but higher levels of prejudice against homosexuals (Duck & Hunsberger, 1999). Thus, like Dave in the opening vignette, many religious people view homosexuality as morally wrong and so seem to have negative views of gay and lesbian people.However, as a growing number of researchers have recognized, it is important to distinguish between judgments about a person's behavior and judgments about the person. Like Dave, religious people might regard homosexual behavior as morally wrong, but might regard gay men and lesbians as people who should be treated with kindness and respect. Are people able to make this distinction? Are they able to, as is often said, hate the sin, but love the sinner? The results are mixed. To illustrate, in one wellknown study (Batson, Floyd, Meyer, & Winner, 1999), introductory psychology participants had the opportunity to help a student (or so it seemed) win a $30 prize, but the details varied. …