Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual teachers' negotiations of civil partnership and schools: ambivalent attachments to religion and secularism. Issue 3 (4th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Neary, Aoife; Gray, Breda; O'Sullivan, Mary
• Is Part Of: Discourse. Volume 39:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 434
• Page End: 447
• Publication Date: 2018-05-04
• Subjects: Civil partnership/same-sex marriage -- lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer -- teachers -- religion -- secularism -- structure of feeling -- cultural legitimacy; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Australia -- Periodicals; 370.5
• DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2016.1276432
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0159-6306

Abstract

ABSTRACT: As legal structures for same-sex relationships are introduced in many contexts, the politics of sexuality are negotiated along religious/secular lines. Religious and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBT-Q) rights are pitted against one another such that LGBT-Q lives often assumed to be secular. Schools are crucibles of intermingling religious, secular and equality discourses and this complexity is carefully negotiated by LGBT-Q teachers in their everyday lives. Drawing on a study with LGB teachers as they entered into a Civil Partnership in Ireland (a legal structure in place for five years prior to enactment of Marriage Equality in 2015), this paper captures a 'structure of feeling' – new cultural work done as sexuality norms were in a state of flux. The teachers' accounts unravel the religious/secular binary and provide insight of universal interest into the ambivalent, messy ways in which the politics of sexuality are (re)negotiated across the overlapping social fields of religion and education.