ABSTRACT
This chapter shares examples of the growing homopositive religious discourse among same-sex attracted young people (SSAY) in Australia using data from Writing Themselves in 3 (WTi3), the third Australian national study on the sexual health and wellbeing of same-sex attracted and gender questioning young people between the ages of 14 and 21 (see Hillier et al., 2010). The focus of this study was on examining the various ways that a religious sub-sample of SSAY in WTi3 discussed a homopositive religious discourse; experienced LGBT affirming religious spaces, used homopositive discourse to reframe, change and re-join religion, and examined the growing narratives of same-sex marriage, parenting, and family. Compared to the previous ‘Writing Themselves In’ (WTI) studies,1 SSAY in WTi3 were more likely to experience homopositive religious discourse, and the religious sub-sample were now imagining their futures to include being married to the same-sex and becoming a parent.
