Marco Derks

Conscientious objectors and the marrying kind: rights and rites in Dutch public discourse on marriage registrars with conscientious objections against conducting same-sex weddings

ABSTRACT When civil marriage in the Netherlands was opened up to same-sex couples in 2001, the Dutch government allowed civil marriage registrars with conscientious objections to opt out. This exemption became controversial in 2007, when it was reemphasized by a new government coalition that comprised two faith-based parties. Through critical discourse analysis this article discusses the construction of religion and homosexuality in public discourses on the weigerambtenaar (lit. ‘refusing civil servant’) between 2007 and 2014. It looks at the effects of the weigerambtenaar as a term, a character and a social problem, and shows how particular oppositions between homosexuals and Christians were created of reinforced. Moreover, it argues that, although the issue was framed in terms of certain secular rights, some contributions also pointed to the importance of (quasi)religious rites in the civil wedding ceremony. Therefore, it also shows how marriage was conceptualized in terms of religion and (homo)sexuality.

Under the Spell of the Ring : The Role of Marriage in Moral Debates among Orthodox Reformed Christians in the Netherlands

Abstract Among orthodox reformed Christians in the Netherlands fierce debates have occurred on moral aspects of Christian life. This essay discusses three major controversial moral issues that are related to conceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality: divorce/remarriage, women’s ordination, and homosexuality. By analysing several contributions to debates on these issues, it proposes and explores a hypothesis that concerns the role of a particular understanding of marriage as characterized by a hermeneutical construct: a communal, deeply rooted and subconscious normative principle that drives our interpretations of texts and practices. This essay illustrates the problems of both the dominance of marriage within Christian communities and lived faith, as well as the modern, romantic aspects of this particular understanding of marriage.

The Pope, the gays and the Dutch: Dutch secular responses to Pope Benedict XVI when homosexuality seems at stake

Abstract This article provides a critical discourse analysis of Dutch perceptions of, and responses to, papal utterances that were perceived to be (primarily) about homosexuality. It looks not only at secular conceptions of religion, in which the Pope’s views on homosexuality are taken as exemplary of the irrationality and libido dominandi of religion, but also at certain postsecular uses of religion to rebuke the Pope. It explains Pope Benedict’s (perceived) obsession with homosexuality by locating it in the context of a Vatican discourse against ‘gender ideology’, whereas it explains the Dutch media’s preoccupation with homosexuality by explaining that the papal pronouncements are seen as a threat to the international role of the Netherlands as a moral guide and, more precisely, a threat to what the Dutch see as their moral ‘export product’: ‘gay marriage’.

Nuptial Symbolics beyond the Law : The Construction of Religion and Sexuality in Debates on the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage

Since the turn of the century, a growing number of (Western) states have legalized samesex marriage (e.g. the Netherlands 2001, Belgium 2003, Spain 2005, Canada 2005, South Africa 2006, Sweden 2009, France 2013) or are about to do so. The intense public debates that often precede – and sometimes follow – these processes indicate that this is not merely an issue of granting equal rights to citizens who ‘happen’ to be non-heterosexual. For both opponents and proponents, the idea of same-sex marriage seems to be heavy with symbolism. Public debates tend to reduce this host of cultural meanings or connotations to the familiar split between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’. This often proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the very proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage can ignite a ‘culture war’. On closer examination, however, many more than just two voices can be heard. Some religious groups (notably liberal Protestant and Jewish denominations) have solemnized same-sex relationships since the mid-1980s, whereas legalization has met with strong opposition not only in secular (e.g. post-communist) societies, but also in some more radical LGBT or queer circles. Public turmoil about this issue brings to light that even to those citizens who cherish the division of Church and State, marriage is not just a matter of rights, but of rituals. The latter bring along a host of cultural, transcendent associations, cutting across the religious-secular divide. Debates on same-sex marriage thus reveal a multitude of discursive constructions of marriage beyond the law. In order to comprehend these varied symbolic exchanges, an in-depth historical, crosscultural analysis of the discursive strategies that are being employed in the proposition of, and in opposition to, same-sex marriage is needed. This special issue – consisting of three main articles and two response articles – aims at contributing to such an analysis by zooming in into debates, past and present, in particular in the Netherlands and Sweden, and to a lesser extent in the United States. Both the Netherlands and Sweden are known for their high level of social acceptance of homosexuality, whereas in the United States social acceptance seems to be increasing as well. Moreover, these countries differ in their religious – and political – configurations. The articles in this issue aim at highlighting how in discourses on same-sex marriage, specific conceptualizations of both religion and homosexuality – notably in terms of individual vs. relational, public