Christian missions and anti-gay attitudes in Africa

Abstract

We argue that colonial Christian missions had a long-term impact on anti-gay attitudes in Africa. We use a geo-coded representative survey of African countries and the location of historical Christian missions to estimate a significant and economically meaningful association between proximity to historical missions and anti-gay sentiments today. Using anthropological data on pre-colonial acceptance of homosexual practices among indigenous groups, we show that the establishment of missions, while nonrandom, was exogenous to pre-existing same-sex patterns among indigenous population. The estimated effect is driven by persons of Christian faith and statistically indistinguishable from zero on samples of Muslims, nonbelievers, and followers of traditional indigenous religions. Thus, we argue that our results are indicative of a causal effect of missionary religious conversion to Christianity.

The Criminal Punishment of LGBTQ: A Comparative Study of Nigerian and Indonesian Laws

“…The Old Testament and the New Testament are commonly understood to specifically prohibit male-to-male attraction, while female-to-female attraction is solely outlawed in the New Testament. In a similar vein, legislative measures implemented during the colonial era in British colonies were deliberately modeled after British "anti-sodomy" statutes (Ananyev & Poyker, 2021).…”

“…On the contrary, as per the findings of a poll conducted by Afrobarometer across 33 African nations, it was shown that over 70 percent of individuals had a negative inclination towards having homosexual individuals as neighbors. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that more than half of the countries within the region have implemented legislation that criminalizes homosexuality (Ananyev & Poyker, 2021). In 31 African nations, the engagement in same-sex sexual behavior is subject to legal sanctions, including Nigeria (Van Hout et al, 2022).…”

Value Similarity and Norm Change: Null Effects and Backlash to Messaging on Same-Sex Rights in Uganda

“…The dearth of available public opinion data on LGB issues in Sub-Saharan Africa has precluded extensive research on the predictors of support for LGB rights in the region. The studies that do exist draw on the Afrobarometer data cited in Figure 1(b), showing that attitudes are linked to media consumption (Winkler, 2021), the degree of religious diversity (Dreier et al, 2020), historical exposure to Christian missionaries (Ananyev & Poyker, 2021), and covariates including education, gender, religion, and urban-rural residence (Dulani et al, 2016). This research examines another potential driver of public opinion—information about the protection of LGB rights in other contexts—and examines its effect on a range of outcomes that go beyond what is available in the Afrobarometer data.…”