For family and for God: an empirical study on the interpretation of the law in Vitória Metropolitan area

Abstract

Religiosity and political stance are aspects that influence legislators' and public opinion's support or opposition to homosexuals' rights according to the literature. This paper examines if these characteristics also influence law graduates of [city] Metropolitan area when interpreting the legal order concerning adoption by homosexuals. Considering that law school might play a role in the interpretation, hermeneutical preference, here characterized as positivism and post-positivism, was added as an independent variable. To investigate a possible correlation between these independent variables and the interpretation, this paper had a quantitative design. The method of data collection was an online questionnaire distributed through snowball sampling. The results, under chi-square tests and binary logistic regression, indicated an association between the interpretation of the legal order regarding adoption by homosexuals and being a Catholic, an Evangelical, church attendance, and affiliating to right-wing and left-wing in politics. In contrast, possibly due to limitations of the questionnaire, positivism and post-positivism showed no association with the interpretation of the law.