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ABSTRACT
In a comparison of attitudes concerning same-sex relationships and inclusive policies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons, African Americans are more likely to possess stronger opposition than Whites. The default agent in explaining disapproving attitudes is the Black Church. However, observations from 2017 expert interviews, part of a study on causes of Black homophobia, revealed that varying experts do not affirm the Black Church as the primary actor in sustaining these attitudes. Based on this observation, this study theorizes that attitudes considered homophobic are primarily sustained by actors distinct and separate from the Black Church. This study employs a modified grounded theory to explore themes toward the creation of an expert-driven narrative that disapproval of same-sex relationships and opposition to LGBTI policies are attitudes sustained by Black gatekeepers, as they see same-sex relationships and policy as oppositional to the Black identity and Black sociopolitical progress.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The Black Church in this study is the collective of Protestant Christian denominations that traditionally have stood at the center of the African American community and sociopolitical progress.
2. The 2017 interviewees were conducted as supplemental qualitative data to the doctoral dissertation, Repercussive Discrimination: Racial Discrimination as an Explanation of Prevalent Homophobia among Racial Minorities.
3. The General Social Survey (GSS) is accepted to be the longest-running national survey inquiring attitudes toward same-sex relationships, doing so since 1973.
4. Gregory Lewis (Citation2003) notes that there is no standard for measuring and coding religiosity. The Schulte (Citation2002) study assessed religiosity by questioning religious affiliation, specifically, church attendance. Lewis (Citation2003) also assessed religiosity, by questioning affiliation and overall religious attendance, with affiliation recoded into distinct variables that separated Protestant Christianity from Catholicism and non-Christian religions like Judaism.
5. The GSS asks, “What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex–do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?” A majority of African Americans have never selected the “not wrong at all” choice; whereas a majority of White Americans selected the “not wrong at all” option in 2014 (53%), 2016 (56%), and 2018 (62%).
6. According to the 2016 American National Election Survey (ANES), 31.54% of Blacks oppose gay marriage, compared to 16.34% of Whites; 36.68% of Blacks oppose gay adoption, compared to 24.93% of Whites; and 19.33% of Blacks opposed legal protections, compared to 17.21% of Whites.
7. Gatewood’s publication is a review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis.
8. As a condition of participation in these interviews, the identity of these persons will remain confidential. The only specific referencing will be to their occupations and educational background, as these were criteria in selecting experts. Some preliminary aggregate information of race and sexual orientation may also be given to demonstrate the interviewee pool’s diversity. Most interviews were recorded; however, some participants declined to be recorded, handwritten notes were taken, and then retrospectively rewritten immediately following the interview.
9. Theoretical sampling allows the researcher to search for new data as the theory’s reliability begins to take shape from the comparative analysis and coding (Tie et al., Citation2019).
10. The GSS asks, “What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex–do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?” For this study, I recoded responses by collapsing the degrees of disagreeable responses and made the response binary—assessing whether the respondent “agrees” or “disagrees” with same-sex relationships.
11. The GSS asks, “And what about a man who admits that he is a homosexual? Suppose this admitted homosexual wanted to make a speech in your community. Should he be allowed to speak, or not?” “And what about a man who admits that he is a homosexual? Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?” “And what about a man who admits that he is a homosexual? If some people in your community suggested that a book he wrote in favor of homosexuality should be taken out of your public library, would you favor removing this book, or not?” “Do you agree or disagree? Homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.”
12. The scale has a high measure of internal validity, noted by the Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.8.
13. The survey question asks, “In what religion were you raised?” and gives options for “Protestant,” “Catholic,” “Jewish,” “None,” “Other,” “Buddhism,” “Hinduism,” “Other Eastern,” “Islam,” “Orthodox Christian,” “Native American,” and “Inter-nondenominational.” African American respondents three most frequently selected choices: Protestant, Catholic, and no religious upbringing. 78.42% of African Americans noted a religious upbringing as Protestant, 12.63% noted Catholic, and 7.11% noted no religious upbringing. These three responses account for 98+% of African American responses. Therefore, other responses were eliminated, and the variable was recoded, using only these three responses.
14. In outputs, category one is omitted in the regression output. However, according to UCLA’s Institute for Digital Research and Education, “_cons” serves as the omitted group’s mean or average response. In this study, Protestant affiliation is the omitted group; therefore, the constant represents the average Black respondent’s choice of “agree/disagree” regarding their opinion on same-sex relationships and the average Black placement on the homophobia scale.