On Hating the Sin but Loving the Sinner: Judgments about Homosexuality and Religiosity

Douglas S. Krull
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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. …
论恨罪爱罪人:对同性恋和宗教信仰的判断
考虑以下场景。假设戴夫是一个虔诚的人,他非常认真地对待自己的信仰,并相信所有的人都应该被善待和尊重。然而,戴夫也认为同性恋行为在道德上是错误的。有一天,一个新的同事,罗恩,被雇用在办公室的戴夫工作,戴夫得知罗恩认同自己是同性恋,并与另一个男人的关系。戴夫会有什么反应?另外,其他同事对戴夫有什么期望?他们会期望戴夫善待和尊重罗恩,还是会期望戴夫对罗恩做出不尊重的评论,甚至可能对他表现出攻击性?早期关于宗教信仰和偏见的研究主要集中在种族偏见上(例如,Allport & Ross, 1967),但在过去的30年里,研究也涉及了宗教人士如何看待和对待同性恋者。正如人们所预料的那样,大量的研究表明,以各种方式运作的宗教信仰与对同性恋的负面看法有关(例如,Fisher, Derison, Polley, Cadman & Johnston, 1994;Gilad & Stepanova, 2015;Herek说道,1987;Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005;柯克帕特里克,1993;Mellinger & Levant, 2014;Wilkinson & Roys, 2005)。在惠特利(2009)的一项荟萃分析中,对宗教虔诚度、原教旨主义、内在宗教虔诚度、基督教正统度和参加宗教仪式的频率的自我评价都与对男女同性恋者的负面态度有关。还应该指出的是,宗教信仰与对同性恋者的态度之间的负面关系并不局限于一个国家,而是在世界上许多国家都发现了,包括土耳其(Sarac, 2015),牙买加(West & Cowell, 2015),马来西亚(Ng, Yee, Subramaniam, Loh, & Moreira, 2015),希腊(Papadaki, Plotnikof, Gioumidou, Zisimou, & Papadaki, 2015),澳大利亚(Patrick, Heywood, Simpson, Pitts, Richters, Shelley, & Smith, 2013),波兰(Kossowska,zernatowicz, & Sekerdej, 2017),新加坡(Detenber, Cenite, Ku, Ong, Tong, & Yeow, 2007),以色列(Eick, Rubinstein, Hertz, & Slater, 2016),危地马拉,巴拉圭,哥伦比亚和智利(Chaux & Le, 2016);事实上,Jackle和Wenzelburger(2015)发现,在世界价值观调查中包括的79个国家中,宗教信仰与对同性恋的态度呈负相关,尽管一些宗教团体(如穆斯林)比其他宗教团体(如佛教徒)更消极。此外,Tsang和Rowatt(2007)发现,内在的宗教信仰——试图按照自己的信仰生活——也与对同性恋的隐性负面看法有关。Duck和Hunsberger(1999)发现,当参与者认为种族主义被他们的宗教团体禁止(即被教导反对)时,对男女同性恋的负面态度被认为是不被禁止的。此外,与Batson、Schoenrade和Ventis(1993)的预测一致,内在的宗教信仰与较低程度的种族主义有关,但与较高程度的对同性恋的偏见有关(Duck & Hunsberger, 1999)。因此,就像开篇小品中的戴夫一样,许多宗教人士认为同性恋在道德上是错误的,因此似乎对同性恋者持负面看法。然而,越来越多的研究人员已经认识到,区分对一个人的行为的判断和对这个人的判断是很重要的。像戴夫一样,宗教人士可能会认为同性恋行为在道德上是错误的,但可能会认为同性恋者应该得到善待和尊重。人们能做出这种区分吗?他们能像人们常说的那样,恨罪而爱罪人吗?结果喜忧参半。为了说明这一点,在一项著名的研究中(Batson, Floyd, Meyer, & Winner, 1999),心理学入门参与者有机会帮助一个学生(至少看起来是这样)赢得30美元的奖金,但细节各不相同。…
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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