Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE December 2016 “Que(e)rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Family in Unitarian Universalist Churches” Karen E. Macke Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Macke, Karen E., "“Que(e)rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Family in Unitarian Universalist Churches”" (2016). Dissertations - ALL. 585. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/585 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT Despite the longstanding debate about religion’s role in social movements, conservative religious opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) social movement in the United States has limited sociological research in this area to questions of individual identity or the oppositional strategies used by religious and LGTBQ groups to sway public opinion and policy decisions. This dissertation addresses the less well-understood dynamics of mainstream religious group participation in LGBTQ social movement. Through frameworks of social movement theory, organizational culture, and queer theory, it explores the organizational elements shaping congregants’ practices in two Unitarian Universalist (UU) churches considered “Welcoming Congregations”. Analysis of data generated from participant observations, in-depth interviews, and church and denominational texts highlight how structures of church governance, materiality, and history intersected with embedded discourses of gender and sexuality to promote “closeting” and “covering” repertoires of discourse and action on behalf of marriage equality. Findings underscore the value of continued research on the specific ways in which specific elements of organizational culture can shape local group discourses and practices at varying depths, degrees, and dimensions of organizational embeddedness. “Que(e)rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Family in Unitarian Universalist Churches” by Karen E. Macke B.A., Colby College, 2000 M.A., Syracuse University, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Syracuse University December 2016 Copyright © Karen E. Macke 2016 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the support, patience, and caring practices of the countless individuals and groups. My sincerest thanks goes first to my dissertation committee, and advisor, Dr. Prema Kurien, whose guidance and confidence in my research and unending patience and advocacy made this project possible. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Andrew London, Dr. John Burdick, Dr. M. Gail Hamner, and Dr. Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, and Dr. Erin Rand, whose continued offerings of insight and support has been foundational to the development of this project. I also owe my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the hard- working UU congregations that welcomed me graciously into their worlds, both public and private, and from whom I received the deepest Welcome as an outsider looking in. To my family, thank you for all of the smiles, hugs, drawings, and messages that have helped keep me going along the way. And to my family, friends, colleagues, and study buddies, you have my unending appreciation and gratitude for your constant companionship and support throughout the years. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Que(e)rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Family in Unitarian Universalist Churches p. 1 Chapter 1: Que(e)rying Methodology to Study Church-Based Activism: p. 39 Chapter 2: Organizational Culture and Embedded Discourses of “Welcoming” p. 62 Chapter 3: Gay (In) Church? Organizational Identities and Identifying Practices p. 90 Chapter 4: Family and Community Values: Negotiating “The Glue” of UU Social Action p. 129 Conclusion: Reflections: Closets, Covers, and the Possibility of Coalitional Identity Politics in UU Churches p. 174 Appendices p. 193 References p. 197 Vita p. 209 v 1 INTRODUCTION Que(e)rying Religious Activism: Culture, Identity, and the Politics of Family in Unitarian Universalist Churches On a bright Sunday morning in June, I visited Hope Church to attend its annual “Pride Service”. Now a regular part of Hope’s summer worship calendar, the LGBTQ Pride Service is also considered routine practice for all UU congregations that are designated as “Welcoming and Affirming”. The following excerpt depicts the interaction that took place after Joann, Hope’s minister, invited congregants to stand and share their personal stories and feelings with the congregation during that morning’s collective offering of “Joys and Sorrows”: Taking the microphone from Joann’s hand, the first speaker, a white haired man, turned to face the congregation and share “some updates” for which he felt joyful. He described his son’s new job and then said his daughter’s husband was back in good health. Smiling, he handed the microphone back to Joann. Congregants waited for the next volunteer. In the back of the room, a man with equally white hair, then stood and said into the mic “I just wanted to share my joy and thanks.” He felt “thankful” his son found a job out of state and joyful “for the birth of a new grandson”. He then requested prayers for his “sister-in-law’s healing after her recent surgery”. The third speaker, a silver-haired woman with glasses and a faint tremor, stood up next to wait for the mic. She announced she was joyful that she and her husband just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. As congregants applauded the achievement, the last speaker stood, cautiously holding the pew in front of her. With focused concentration, she said, “My name is Abby, and my joy is that this is a Welcoming Congregation” (Field notes Hope Church). I chose to introduce my dissertation with this excerpt because it offers a “magnified moment” of Hope’s practices as a “Welcoming Congregation”. “Magnified moments,” according to Arlie Russell Hochschild, are “episodes of heightened importance, either epiphanies, moments of intense glee or unusual insight, or moments in which things go intensely but meaningfully wrong” (2003:16). Either way, she explained, “the moment stands out as metaphorically rich, [or] unusually elaborate,” with respect to a research topic or question. While on the surface, the excerpt of field notes that I recorded may seem to depict a 2 rather mundane moment, a fairly typical interaction that occurred during a routine worship practice at a small UU church in the Northeast United States. However, as I watched this moment unfold, I realized that it actually revealed a situation that was much more complex. This moment became magnified because of how the silence in the sanctuary outmatched the Pride that morning. It was magnified because of the questions it raised about the complex relations of power and discourse that surfaced through those interactions. Why, for instance, on a day of celebrating the lives and honoring the struggles of LGBTQ people, did only one congregant mention Hope’s Welcoming Congregation, or anything related to LGBTQ social justice for that matter? How, in the height of statewide political contest over same-sex marriage rights, was it possible to hear so many hetero-normative stories of family “joy”, without so much as a whisper about LGBTQ Pride being the theme of the service or the day? This moment, in other words, is magnified for what it captures about the interwoven mechanisms of organizational life that shape UU participation in LGBTQ social movement, which is the topic of my dissertation research. At the heart of my dissertation research is the question of organized religion and its relation and significance to social movements. This question, once central to the early development of sociological thought and practice, still stands as a topic of considerable interest both within and beyond the academy. Whether as an agent and catalyst of social change or as a source of conservative opposition and social stability, the history of religious group participation in social movements is long and complex (Smith 1996; Wood 1999). In the United States, this history of religious advocacy for social change spans more than two hundred years, and encompasses a wide range of social justice efforts (Quinley 1974; Slessarev-Jamir 2004; Smith 1996; St John 2001). From the large-scale movements of Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights to 3 local-level grassroots and community organizing, “the stuff of religion has helped constitute the very substance of these social movements’ grievances, identities, organizations, and strategies” (Smith 1996:9; see also Bumbaugh 2000, Raines 1977, Slessarev-Jamir 2004). Yet, for all that we know about religion as a catalyst of change, religious collective action for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ) social justice have remained largely unexplored.1 Dominant Christian opposition to non-normative gender and sexuality has limited our understanding of religious groups’ practices when advocating for sexuality and gender justice. Scholarship on religion and sexuality largely falls instead within two loosely defined themes: namely, the ways that individuals reconcile their (seemingly