Religious youth and homosexuality: Challenges for promotion of health and sexual rights

Abstract

This paper describes religious young people's conceptions of homosexuality, which is important knowledge for informing public policies within health promotion. Based on a constructionism and human rights framework, the study analyzed two focus groups and eighteen interviews with young followers of Afro-Brazilian religions (Umbanda and Candomblé), Catholicism, Anglicanism, Adventist Church of Promise and Assembly of God. Their conceptions about homosexuality took into consideration dogmatic morals and incorporated daily life experiences. Their interpretation of homosexuality therefore placed value on moral guidance from adult religious authorities and other forms of discourse relating to healthcare policies and social movements against sexual discrimination. To differing degrees, each young person reworked the discourse that had been accessed, as religious and sexual subjects. Within these psychosocial dynamics, openness towards health promotion based on human rights was observed, and youth people were seen as protagonists for adaptation of religious codes to singular courses of life and contexts.