LGBT and Queer Studies in Ethics

In the early to mid-twentieth century, religious ethical scholarship expressed a variety of sentiments concerning relationships between persons of the same sex. Various scholars declared that these relationships were not so much morally wrong as psychologically impossible. Contemporary ethical debate has shifted in light of the political struggles over the legalization of "gay marriage." Ethical discourses from the margins - including feminist, womanist, and liberationist ethics - have sought to define the conditions under which LGBT identities and relationships might be morally right, psychologically healthy, and socially constructive. What faith communities and religious scholarship can do to foster such conditions remains a complex issue with far-reaching implications. One of the central aims, then, of this interest group is to destabilize discourses in ethics by introducing queer concepts and methods to interrogate constructs of identity and sexuality.