Queer Politics: Re-Shaping the Politics of Church and State

Abstract

The impact of LGBTQ+ individuals upon church institutions, state organizations, and political actors is expanding globally. Considerable policy objectives that protect queer people and families, most notably on marriage, trans rights, and non-discrimination policies, have been enacted in many nation states. However, although there are exceptions to queer political progress, broader church and government inter-actions have been altered as well, demonstrating a dynamic religious and political relationship. Far-right nationalists and traditional religious conservatives respond to queer influence by moving further to the right and using LGBTQ+ individuals and political groups as rhetorical and political targets to motivate their base. The result is a draconian environment for progressives inside these institutions. Also notable is the political power necessary to provoke this obsessive focus upon anything ‘queer’.