Abstract
Stigmatising homosexual individuals damages their emotional health and quality of life. In particular, those with religious beliefs may additionally suffer from religious discordance due to their sexual preferences. This exploratory research investigates how Buddhists perceive homosexuality and how Buddhist lesbians, gays and bisexuals (LGBs) accept their sexual orientation. It adopts semi-structured Internet-based text and voice interviews with 11 participants, including homosexual Buddhists, Buddhist masters, and heterosexual Buddhists. The findings are analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, with the aid of a computerised qualitative data-analysis package. Results reveal a compassionate culture towards this marginalised group, for which Buddhist LGBs cultivate self-acceptance through Buddhist teachings, such as the clarification of nature and manifestation, Buddhist equality, and proper interpretation of precepts. These teachings also encourage inclusiveness.
Highlights
Heterosexuality remains dominant in contemporary cultures (Valentine 1993; Phillips 2006), implying the fact that people with a sexual orientation other than this may agonise over low acceptance (Burgess 2005) and high social isolation (Takács 2004)
This research subsequently discusses the interaction between self-acceptance of Buddhist homosexual individuals and social acceptance, and discloses the Buddhist insights that direct their attitudes, propounding the implications
Despite the fact that Buddhism is relatively open-minded towards homosexuality, some Buddhist monks and nuns continue to find it difficult to work with homosexual Buddhist followers
Summary
Heterosexuality remains dominant in contemporary cultures (Valentine 1993; Phillips 2006), implying the fact that people with a sexual orientation other than this may agonise over low acceptance (Burgess 2005) and high social isolation (Takács 2004). Weinberg in the late 1960s (Vaughn 2011), describes irrational fear and negative attitudes towards homosexuals, including resentment, hatred, prejudice, bias, harassment, intimidation, humiliation, hostility, and crime (Irwin 2007; Teliti 2015; Duncan and Hatzenbuehler 2014) It often results in school bullying (Lee 2014) and aggression (Bernat et al 2001), which harms adolescents (van Wormer and McKinney 2003) and places them in disparate predicaments; for instance, substance abuse (Jordan 2000), social and affective isolation (Teixeira-Filho et al 2011), homelessness (Keuroghlian et al 2014), depression (McLaren et al 2007), anxiety (Williams 2008), and even leading to suicide (Hatzenbuehler 2011). The findings are expected to shed insight into how to view homosexuality, which will extend the horizon of an inclusive society
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