Religion and Sexuality

The relationship between religion and sexuality is often framed as inherently conflictual. Religious groups and ideologies have long influenced the public regulation of sexuality and recent controversies include religious opposition to same-sex marriage, sex education in schools, and non-traditional expressions of sexual identity. But what actually happens when religion and sexuality converge in contemporary contexts?

Religion and Sexuality challenges the commonly held assumption that religion’s relationship to sexuality is solely bound up with regulation. In this provocative examination of both sexual and religious diversity, chapters go beyond the familiar debates over tolerance and accommodation to explore the ways in which various forms of religious affiliation and sexual identity do, in fact, co-exist. Drawing on interviews and analyzing media representations, legislation, and public discourse on topics such as education, economics, and same-sex marriage in North America and the United Kingdom, this volume foregrounds the complexity and multiplicity of religious and sexual identities and practices.

Pamela Dickey Young is a professor in the School of Religion at Queen’s University. She is the author of Religion, Sex and Politics: Christian Churches and Same-Sex Marriage in Canada (2012) and co-editor of Women and Religious Traditions, 3rd edition (2014). Heather Shipley is the project manager for the Religion and Diversity Project and she teaches at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. Tracy J. Trothen is an associate professor of ethics and theology at the Queen’s University School of Religion. She is also a clinical pastoral education supervisor certified by the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care. Trothen is the author of numerous publications including Shattering the Illusion: Child Sexual Abuse Policies and Canadian Religious Institutions (2012).

Contributors: Donald L. Boisvert, Catherine Holtmann, Janet R. Jakobsen, Lee Wing (Vivian) Hin, Nancy Nason-Clark, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip

Marvin M. Ellison, author of Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times:
Sophisticated, cutting-edge scholarship. This volume explores complex connections between religion, sexuality, and social diversity while challenging an all-too-common presumption that religion is synonymous with regulatory control of sexual identity and sexual behaviour.