ABSTRACT
In spite of increasing social and legal normalization of non-heterosexuality (specifically homosexuality) in western society, non-heterosexuals 1 with religious faith continue to grapple with censure of their sexuality within religious communities. Notwithstanding the gradual ascendancy of their own voices and their supporters’, their progressive efforts for change continue to experience resistance from conservative quarters of the religious communities. Within the Christian community, this resistance has been demonstrated since May 2003 by the controversy surrounding the appointment of the publicly gay Jeffrey John as the Bishop of Reading, and his subsequent withdrawal as a result of the threat of disintegration of the international Anglican Communion (e.g. Yip and Keenan, 2004). Such resistance is also clearly manifested in the Vatican’s latest document on human sexuality, issued in June 2003, that continues to pathologize homosexuality and same-sex relationships (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2003); and in the protestations against the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, the
