Religious conservatism on the global stage: threats and challenges for LGBTI Rights

JOSÉ MANUEL MORÁN FAUNDES; JUAN MARCO VAGGIONE; MARÍA ANGÉLICA PEÑAS DEFAGO

2018-02-26/2018-10-08

1-40

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Des.Socioecon.y Serv.-Varios

This report is the most comprehensive study to date of the way that religious conservativism is currently operating around the world. It presents the tactics, discourse, funding patterns, and institutional and organizational actors, and includes case studies focused on Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. More than that, the report explains how religious opposition to sexuality and gender equality has been transformed in the past two decades by the establishment of large, well-funded NGOs. A direct response to the U.N. Conferences in Cairo and Beijing in the mid-1990s, these NGOs are mostly but not exclusively based in the US and are founded in Evangelical Protestantism, Catholic, and Mormon faiths. Working alongside political actors such as the Russian Federation or the OIC as well as religious institutions, these NGOs have adopted collective mobilization and the secular language of human rights as winning strategies. They engage in interreligious alliances and host international conferences to build grassroots support. They claim to ?protect the family? and use the empty construct of ?gender ideology? to attack feminism and LGBTI equality. With a perspective that is simultaneously global, regional, and national, the authors describe and analyze a phenomenon that is characterized by a politicized use of conservative religious ideology but is also complex, varied and endlessly adaptive. This report connects the dots between different movements and geographies, illuminating key themes and providing a theoretical framework for understanding ? understanding that will be essential to an effective philanthropic response.