Religion, politics and sexual rights - Public controversies about "Sexual Reorientation Therapies" in Brazil

Abstract

This project addresses questions developed during the process of my PhD research, drawing attention to relationships between religion, sexual rights, and the state. Based on public statements made by emerging religious leaders in Brazil, my research analyzes the production of the controversy of the "Gay Cure" otherwise known as "sexual reorientation therapy". Through my analysis, I explore discursive practices and positions of the heterogeneous network of social actors (religious, political, scientific, and activist) in dispute over a common object: sexuality. The question of this research concerns relationships, mediated by sexuality and moralities, between religious agencies and public space. It therefore evokes the construction of sexual moralities derived from the publicity of debates had by religious agents in the public sphere. Henceforth, the main analytical concern of the research is the analysis of how boundaries between spheres previously declared as distinct domains (religion, sexuality, science, and politics) are culturally and historically constituted and intertwined. In other words, my research proposes to understand how sexual and religious regulations are produced from the publicness of the "Gay Cure".