ABSTRACT
Coming out is often described as challenging, especially for individuals from conservative religious communities (Etengoff, 2013). In an effort to explore how these sociocultural conflicts are mediated, gay men (n = 16) and their family allies (n = 9) from Christian and Jewish communities wrote letters to religious leaders regarding current sexual minority policies and whether they should change or remain the same. Petitioning tasks were selected as letters can shift author–audience relations to allow for non-normative and unscripted expressions (Daiute & Lightfoot, 2004). Sixteen of the 25 participants addressed their letters to a specific religious figure, illustrating the sociorelational applicability of the task. Ninety-three problems and 75 solutions were discussed, supporting prior discussions of petitioning tasks as a form of living history and conflict mediation (Daiute, 2010). Moreover, 20 of the 25 participants wrote about humanization needs (e.g., “We are not freaks at a freak show”), providing new conceptual structures for participatory research efforts, policy initiatives, and clinical applications.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank all research participants for generously sharing their time and hopes for change. The author would also like to express gratitude to Dr. Colette Daiute for her brilliant guidance and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for supporting this project with competitive dissertation funding. The author would additionally like to acknowledge Shira Donath’s and Rachel Goldberg’s meticulous coding efforts. It should also be noted that the development of the current work benefited from peer feedback at the 2013 Eastern Psychological Association Meeting and the 2014 International Society for Cultural Activity Research Meeting.
Funding
Funding was received from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.