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While gay rights are on the national agenda now, activists have spent decades fighting for their platform, seeing themselves as David against the religious right's Goliath. At the same time, the religious right has continuously and effectively countered the endeavors of lesbian and gay activists, working to repeal many of the laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and to progress a constitutional amendment "protecting" marriage. In this accessible and grounded work, Tina Fetner uncovers a remarkably complex relationship between the two movements--one that transcends politic

Why has the religious right been more influential in the United States than in Canada? Traditional approaches to the study of social movements focus only on the life of the movement, from emergence to decline. Instead, I conduct a historical, comparative analysis on the premovement activities of evangelical Christian communities in these two countries from 1925–1975. Employing insights from historical institutionalism, I identify two critical junctures in the historical development of evangelical communities that suppressed the entrepreneurship and institution-building activities of Canadian evangelicals relative to those in the United States. I find that these divergences in institution building affected the size and strength of the institutional infrastructures—supportive organizations, networks, and resources—of the religious right movements in these countries. I argue that historical, comparative analysis in general, and historical institutionalism in particular, is useful to social movement scholarship's understanding of crossnational movement comparisons.

The large-scale increase in attitudes toward LGBT americans has outpaced change on other social dimensions like race and immigration status.

Abortion providers often report having patients who describe abortion as immoral, even while accessing abortion care. According to these anecdotes, antiabortion identities, frequently depicted as tied to religious identities, are not necessarily reflected in individuals' lived experiences. Yet social science research and political rhetoric tend to suggest a straightforward connection between religion and antiabortion beliefs and practices. The authors ask, does religion have a greater impact on attitudes toward abortion than on personal decisions to terminate one's own pregnancy? Using an original survey of Canadian women ( n = 1,181), the authors examine religious affiliation and attendance, abortion attitudes, and self-reported abortion experience. Religious affiliation and attendance predict abortion attitudes to a greater extent than they predict abortion behavior. The authors use Burke's concept of polysemic categories to argue that personal meanings of religious affiliation may be more salient for attitudes toward abortion than for the personal decision to access abortion care.

AbstractThis paper uses two surveys to examine sexual identity‐behavior discordance in Canada. The first is the Sex in Canada survey (SCS), which is a private survey of 2,303 Canadians. The second is the 2015–2016 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), which is a large nationally representative government‐administered survey with 109,659 respondents. Results from the CCHS show that identity‐behavior discordance and overall rates of same‐sex contact are lower in Canada than in the US, UK, or Australia. An estimated .7 percent of males and 2.7 percent of females aged 15–64 who had had lifetime sex identified as heterosexual yet have had same‐sex contact, figures which equate to an estimated 65,700 males and 255,100 females. Few demographic factors were associated with discordance. Results from the SCS show that about two‐thirds of heterosexuals with identity‐behavior discordance were moderately supportive of LGBQ rights and one‐third were moderately homophobic. Future research will need to uncover why a lower proportion of Canadians report same‐sex partners and identity‐behavior discordance than their counterparts in the US, UK, or Australia.Cet article utilise deux enquêtes pour examiner la discordance entre l'identité sexuelle et le comportement au Canada. La première est l'enquête Sex in Canada (SCS), qui est une enquête privée menée auprès de 2 303 Canadiens. La seconde est l'Enquête sur la santé dans les collectivités canadiennes (ESCC) de 2015–2016, qui est une grande enquête représentative à l'échelle nationale administrée par le gouvernement auprès de 109 659 répondants. Les résultats de l'ESCC montrent que la discordance identité‐comportement et les taux globaux de contacts entre personnes de même sexe sont plus faibles au Canada qu'aux États‐Unis, au Royaume‐Uni ou en Australie. On estime que 0,7 % des hommes et 2,7 % des femmes âgés de 15 à 64 ans ayant eu des rapports sexuels au cours de leur vie se sont identifiés comme hétérosexuels, mais ont eu des contacts avec des personnes du même sexe, ce qui correspond à environ 65 700 hommes et 255 100 femmes. Peu de facteurs démographiques étaient associés à la discordance. Les résultats de l'enquête SCS montrent qu'environ deux tiers des hétérosexuels présentant une discordance entre identité et comportement étaient modérément favorables aux droits des LGBQ et qu'un tiers était modérément homophobe. Les recherches futures devront découvrir pourquoi une plus faible proportion de Canadiens déclarent avoir des partenaires de même sexe et être en désaccord avec leur identité et leur comportement que leurs homologues aux États‐Unis, au Royaume‐Uni ou en Australie.

Men's identification with and support for feminism has attracted the interest of masculinity scholars. This study explores an under-researched dimension of this phenomenon, investigating the relationship between feminist identification and sexual behavior. In heterosexual encounters, do feminist men report having sex more recently than those who do not call themselves feminists? During sexual encounters, do feminist men behave differently than non-feminists? In particular, do feminist men organize their sexual behavior in a way that prioritizes their partners' sexual pleasure to a greater extent than non-feminists? Using representative survey data of Canadian adults, we examine the self-reported sexual behavior of heterosexual Canadian men. We find that self-identifying feminist men report having sex more recently and are more likely to report engaging in breast stimulation and performing oral sex on their partners than non-feminists. We discuss the implications of these findings on the sociological literature on gender and sexuality.

We examine the lived experiences of high-school students who participated in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-centered activism of some kind, highlighting the promise of gay-straight alliance groups by comparing the experiences of students at schools with gay-straight alliances (GSA schools) with the experiences of students at schools that did not have an LGBTQ-specific group (no-GSA schools). We compare students at GSA and no-GSA schools based on their experiences of harassment, experiences of support from authority figures, and patterns of friendships. We find that students at both types of schools experienced harassment and heard negative comments about lesbian and gay people. However, students at GSA schools reported more support from teachers and administrators than students at no-GSA schools, who have stories of teachers and administrators actively opposing equality for LGBTQ people. Students at GSA schools reported a wide variety of friendships across sexual identities, while students at no-GSA schools felt more isolated and withdrawn. This much-needed qualitative comparative analysis of students' experiences brings a human face to the improved quality of life that schools with gay-straight alliances can bring to young people.

Using hierarchical linear models fitted to data from the World Values Survey and national statistics for 35 countries, this article builds on the postmaterialist thesis by assessing the impact of economic inequality across and within nations on attitudes toward homosexuality. It provides evidence that tolerance tends to decline as national income inequality rises. For professionals and managers, the results also support the postmaterialist argument that economic development leads to more tolerant attitudes. On the other hand, attitudes of the working class are generally less tolerant, and contrary to expectations of the postmaterialist thesis, are seemingly unaffected by economic development. In other words, economic development influences attitudes only for those who benefit most. These findings have political implications, suggesting that state policies that have the goal of economic growth but fail to consider economic inequality may contribute to intolerant social and political values, an attribute widely considered detrimental for the health of democracy.