Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (Sexual Cultures)

190 Pages·2003·0.64 MB·English

by  Janet Jakobsen

Love the Sin
SEXUAL CULTURES: New Directions from the Center for
Lesbian and Gay Studies
General Editors: José Esteban Muñoz and Ann Pellegrini
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Edited by María Carla Sánchez and Linda Schlossberg
The Queerest Art: Essays on Lesbian and Gay Theater
Edited by Alisa Solomon and Framji Minwalla
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Edited by Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé and Martin F. Manalansan IV
Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces
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Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance
Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini
Love the Sin
Sexual Regulation and the Limits
of Religious Tolerance
JANET R. JAKOBSEN AND ANN PELLEGRINI
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
© 2003 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jakobsen, Janet R., 1960–
Love the Sin : sexual regulation and the limits
of religious tolerance / Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini.
p. cm. — (Sexual cultures)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8147-4264-5 (alk. paper)
1. Homosexuality—Religious aspects—Christianity.
2. Gay rights—Religious aspects—Christianity.
3. Homosexuality—Government policy—United States.
4. Gay rights—United States. I. Pellegrini, Ann, 1964–
II. Title. III. Series.
BR115.H6 J34 2003
291.1'7835766'0973—dc21 2002012273
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For those we love,
in the fullness and complexity of all that means.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Why Religion, Why Sex? 1
1 Getting Religion 19
2 What’s Wrong with Tolerance? 45
3 Not Born That Way 75
4 The Free Exercise of Sex 103
5 Valuing Sex 127
Conclusion: Open Endings, Dreaming America 149
Notes 153
Index 169
About the Authors 175
vii

Acknowledgments
This book marks a different kind of writing for both of us. Not only is it collabora-
tive, when collaborative articles and books in the humanities are a rarity (especially
in comparison to the sciences and social sciences), but it also represents something
of a departure from the densely footnoted work we have produced in our more tra-
ditionally academic writing. We have not, however, left our scholarly personae (or
footnotes) behind altogether. Rather, we hope in these pages to connect the ques-
tions we have asked, both individually and together, in sometimes arcane aca-
demic circles to ongoing public debates about religious and sexual freedom in the
United States.
Inthisbook,wearguefortheproductionofnewvaluesthroughvariousforms
of intimacy. These intimacies and the values they enable do not come from
nowhere,butemergeinpartoutofsocialmovements.Wewouldevensaythatso-
cial movements, such as the African American civil rights movement, and
women’s and gay liberation, are among the conditions of possibility for the new
intimaciesandvalueschampionedinthesepages.Weaccordinglywanttobegin
bythankingthosesocialmovementsthathavetaughtusjusthowmuchcancome
outofthinkingandworkingtogethertowardadifferentkindoffuture.
This book is the product, then, not just of the many conversations and debates
between the two of us, but also of the many generous contributions of colleagues,
friends, interlocutors, and opponents along the way. We lay out their contributions
in some detail here so as to acknowledge the breadth of activity—and hence the
depth of our gratitude—that is encapsulated in the term “collaborative writing.”
Our own conversations began long before we undertook the actual writing of
this book. The ideas that became Love the Sinwere first articulated in a panel that
ix