The aim of this study is to from a qualitative perspective develop a deeper understanding of how religiously conservative homosexuals with deeply held religious views, experience and tackle the conflict between their religiousity and sexuality. I am also interested in how this conflict might contribute to psychological distress, if at all. To settle these curiosities the essay will address the following questions: how does two homosexual orthodox jews and one homosexual muslim experience and handle the conflict between their sexuality and their religious convictions? And: Does this conflict contribute to psychological distress? If so, how does it manifest? As indicated by the first question, the study will only include a small sample size of three persons. The aforementioned people are portrayed in the documentaries ”A Jihad for love” or ”Trembling before G-d”, and their stories constitute the material that will be used to answer the research questions. To analyse this material I have chosen an inductive approach, and Festingers theory regarding cognitive dissonance is later implemented. This theory suggests that human beings constantly strive towards a sense of consistensy, and when incoherencies appear the person is automatically motivated to solve or relieve them. The result of the study found that the sample size prioritized their religiousity over their sexuality and they all described the experience of the conflict between the two identity aspects in negative terms. To handle this discrepancy two of the research subjects had tried to change their sexual attractions, or is still trying to. The third person balanced their sexual and religious identity and sought solace in LGBT events whilst staying married to her husband and engaging in orthodox jewish life. The study also manages to establish a link between the aforementioned conflict and psychological distress.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-384841 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Johansson, Samuel |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Religionspsykologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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