Christianity, social tolerance and homosexuality in twentieth-century Great Britain and the United States

Or as my head of deparment put it, "Glam historian in Gay Probe"


A little blurb about my new research project:


The connections between sex and Christianity are both self-evident and extremely relevant. In the last fifty years it has seemed as though Christian churches were obsessed with sex, especially homosexuality. In his 2008 Christmas message, Pope Benedict XVI listed homosexuality, alongside climate change and war, as one of the three major threats to humanity (see left).
Contrary to expectations, however, not all Churches have promoted a conservative line on homosexuality and homosexual reform. While some Churches have been among the most vociferous opponents of reform, even validating discrimination, others have led reform. So while on the one hand Christian Churches have led opposition to gay marriage in the United States, on the other hand the English Churches actively campaigned for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1950s. The way in which different cultures of Christianity explicitly and implicitly negotiated new understandings of sexual identity over the course of the twentieth century is central to understanding the dramatic differences in their capacity for tolerance of homosexuality. In this study I will chart how different the three main Christian traditions in Britain and the United States reacted to medical models of sexuality in the early twentieth century, and then show how their new understanding of sexuality influenced their responses to and participation in the politics of gay law reform. The project is interdisciplinary, bringing the insights of queer theology to the history of sexuality; it will make a major contribution to our understating of the place of religion in public policy; and this knowledge of religious tolerance of sexual diversity will also aid understanding of wider social tolerance (see below).