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Resisting LGBT Rights Where “We Have Won”: Canada and Great Britain

KATHERINE BROWNE AND CATHERINE J. NASH

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) human rights are often assumed to travel from the core to the periphery, namely from the Global North to the Global South. However, these rights flows and resistances are more complex than a unidirectional model might suggest. Using a transnational perspective, we consider resistances to LGBT rights in places where LGBT rights are supposedly assured. In Canada and Great Britain, where various forms of equities legislation for LGBT people have been enacted, there is an increasing opposition to LGBT gains. The transnational circulation of these oppositional discourses can be seen in how Canadian and British organizations talk to, and about, each other and illustrate transnational networks that create resistances in the places where “we have won.” This questions a sole focus on resistances in places that do not have LGBT equalities legislation, usually those outside the Global North and associated with “less developed others.”

Introduction

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) human rights initiatives are often assumed to move from the core to the periphery, that is, from the Global North to Global South or to Central and Eastern Europe (Kulpa and Mizielińska 2011), sometimes through a “norm diffusion” model. Resistances to LGBT human rights in countries in the Global South are often portrayed as or associated with narratives of “backwardness,” or “limited progress.” Such representations of opposition to LGBT rights claims often fail to recognize the awkward legacies of colonialisms that resist ongoing global LGBT rights claims seeming to arise in the Global North, in places such as Canada and the United States. At the same time, it is clear that at least some of the ongoing antigay activism in countries in Africa are not homegrown but can be linked to various Christian Right organizations in the United States (Buss and Herman 2003). These groups are actively engaged in promoting the protection of heterosexualities as the only true form of sexual expression and in some cases working to criminalize (and demonize) other sexual identities and practices. This illustrates the intensifying battle in the Global South battle to retain the privileged position of heteronormativities (that is, normative heterosexual relationships

Katherine Browne is a Reader in Human Geography at the University of Brighton. Her work coalesces around geographies of gender and sexualities and encompasses the areas of sexualities, gender, feminisms, queer, spiritualities, and everyday lives. Her work with Prof. Catherine J. Nash explores resistances to LGBT equalities in places where these are supposedly “won.”

Catherine J. Nash is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Brock University. Her research interests include geographies of sexuality/queer/feminist and trans geographies, mobilities, and digital technologies.

Address correspondence to Dr. Katherine Browne, University of Brighton, Moulsecoomb Campus, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4GJ, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

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that are between normatively cisgendered1 people), legislatively and culturally, given the perceived “failure” to do so in the Global North.

Scholarship in the Global North problematizes the successes of LGBT rights activism through a critique that draws on notions of homonormativities and homonationalisms (Puar 2007; Brown 2012). The term “homonormative” means that only certain lesbians and gay men are included within these new LGBT human rights gains, thereby leaving uncontested the heteronormative basis of sexual citizenships (Duggan 2002; Richardson 2004, 2005). Arguably, domesticated gay and lesbian couples, presumably monogamous and operating within certain classed, racial, gendered, and able-bodied formations, have been “included” as sexual citizens of the nation state in ways that were once unimaginable (see Weeks 2007). Homonormative critiques argue that such inclusions nevertheless continue to rely on the formulation of “abnormal” and therefore excluded others (Taylor 2007; Kuntsman and Miyake 2008; McDermott, 2011). Similarly, homonationalism sees certain gay men and lesbians as having been co-opted into projects of nation-building, reiterating self/other dichotomies that demonize “foreign” others. The justification for war on “human rights” grounds, for example, can draw on a form of homonationalism that sees the Global North as more “progressive” because of its supposed “acceptance” of gay men and lesbians (see Puar 2007, 2011).

A narrow focus on the co-opting of gay and lesbian identities into the national project can overlook ongoing, and indeed increasingly significant, oppositions to LGBT equalities in the Global North itself. There is a significant body of research on US-based conservative and/or religious organizations and the Christian Right examining their domestic agenda and their growing transnational spheres of influence through participation in United Nations activities and in the World Congress of Families (Buss and Herman, 2003; Burack and Josephson 2005; Crowley 2007; Peterson 2011; Todd and Ong 2012). Political science has examined LGBT legal and policy recognition using cross-national comparative analyses to explore factors such as the impact of multilevel state institutions, the organization, opportunities, and resources of LGBT movements and Christian right and conservative opponents, and the impact of political cultural factors on legal and policy change (Buss and Herman 2003; Smith 2007; Andersen and Fetner 2008a, 2008b; Fetner 2008; Nicol and Smith 2008; Burack and Wilson 2012; Pierceson et al. 2010; Tremblay et al. 2011; Holzhacker 2012; Rayside and Wilcox 2012). Less well known is how opposition to LGBT rights and equalities is created through organizations and alliances that operate in British2 and Canadian contexts where LGBT equalities, including same-sex marriage, are in place.

In this article, we will explore how those opposing LGBT rights in Canada and Great Britain are developing transnational, material, and discursive oppositional networks that draw on similar ideological arguments but exhibit distinctive characteristics related to their geotemporal locations. We propose to use transnational, rather than comparative, framings to ground our project. In its simplest sense, then, to “compare” is to detail the similarities and differences in oppositional discourses in two discrete locations, giving a sense of what is happening in each country while acknowledging points of divergence and agreement. We want to argue that a transnational approach refocuses our attention on how uneven and unstable networks amongst and between activists/groups (and operating across national borders) exchange, share and shape systems of meaning within local contexts. This also is different to a norm diffusion model. We are using a transnational, multiscalar perspective to frame a more recursive perspective. Therefore, we do not see norms as diffusing from a center but instead see them as formed through interactive engagements and related to the particulars of place. Our analysis is grounded in a geographical perspective where

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deployments of notions of place are key to exploring the manifestations of resistances to human rights.

We begin with a discussion of the scholarship on the globalizing nature of LGBT rights activism that initially focused on what seemed to be the global proliferation of Western gay and lesbian identities. Subsequent research critiqued this perspective highlighting the incoherence of these identities in certain locations and noting the circulation and flows of “queer” identities within transnational networks; we consider how the notion of “transnationalism” is used in this research. We then explore the nature of the oppositional movements in Canada and Britain, arguing that these groups are focusing on reasserting various forms of heteronormative privilege that refine our understandings of contemporary sexual and gendered landscapes. We then consider examples of how transnational networks are constituted through the exchange of ideas and values as well as through material and discursive interactions while highlighting the specificities of place. In doing so, we illustrate the multiscalar ways in which political and social activisms act in opposing LGBT equalities.

Global Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans Human Rights

Scholarship on international LGBT human rights activism, particularly in the Global North, argues that by forming international LGBT networks, activists developed increasingly pro- fessionalized organizations engaged in largely mainstream political and social lobbying efforts (Altman 2001; Warner 2002; Binnie 2004) largely based on LGBT human rights claims (Waites 2009; Kollman and Waites 2009; Swiebel 2009). By the early 2000s, these organizations had forged connections with more broadly based international rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The signing of the Declaration of Montreal (2006) outlining LGBT human rights protections and the 2006 Yogyakarta Principles (2006) on the application of international human rights law in relation to “sex- ual orientation” and “gender identity” constitute the strongest international statements on LGBT rights claims to date. These distinctive approaches, one grounded in global human rights claims and the other based on broader notions of sexual orientation and gender identity, highlight the culturally contested ways of understanding human gendered and sexualized behaviors (Kollman and Waites 2009). Scholars exploring the distinctive forms and contexts of international LGBT human rights activism, highlight the importance of “place” in seeking protections for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (e.g., Stychin and Herman 2000; Buss and Herman 2003; Petchesky 2000; Delanty 2000; Graupner and Tahmindjis 2005; Corrêa et al. 2008). International LGBT human rights approaches have sought to use global and supranational organizations to influence domestic policy and national citizenship debates around LGBT rights (Kollman and Waites 2009; Swiebel 2009).

Despite the success of international LGBT rights activism, scholars have also noted how LGBT human rights claims and the interferences into domestic policies can be problematic. This is particularly so in locations where LGBT identities, grounded in understanding in the Global North, do not translate easily, if at all, to local understandings of gender and sexual practices, relationships, and desires. Critical research on the globalization of sexualities vigorously debates how we are to understand the global circulation of specifically Western- centric conceptualizations of gender, sexuality, and embodiment (e.g., Adam et al. 1992; Plummer 1992; Altman 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 2001; Brown et al. 2010; Drucker 2000; Grewal and Kaplan 2001; Cruz-Malavé and Manalansan 2002). As a result, scholarship over the last decade has taken a more complex and nuanced approach to “queer” globalization, critiquing notions there is an unproblematic, unidirectional, and uniform adoption of Western gay and

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lesbian identities in the Global South (e.g., Povinelli and Chauncey 1999; Cruz-Malavé and Manalansan 2002; Kulpa and Mizielińska, 2011). Indeed the “spread” of LGBT equalities from the Global North to the Global South through discourses of progress and “rescuing” has been heavily critiqued in terms of homonationalisms (see Puar, 2006, 2007). The use of the term “queer” to denote more fluid sexual and gendered identities, behaviors, and practices mark what Povinelli and Chauncey call a “transnational turn” in sexualities studies that considers the formation of sexual identities from a transnational perspective and the “effect of increasing transnational mobility of people, media, commodities, discourses and capital on local, regional and national modes of sexual desire, embodiment and subjectivity” (1999: 439).

Taken together, this scholarship shows that, whilst LGBT identities might be de- ployed in international activism, no single global LGBT culture or identity can be said to exist (Jackson 2009; Sánchez-Eppler and Patton 2000; Boellstroff 2007). By the same token, international oppositional discourses to LGBT rights claims also lack homogene- ity and require a geographically nuanced consideration offering cogent insights into the forms these oppositions take in specific instances such as Canada and Great Britain. Thus, there is a need to interrogate the interconnected, transnational, and multiple forms of re- sistance, highlighting geographical manifestations of global relations, connections, and linkages.

Networks and Place

We take a transnational approach to understanding the circulation of notions of gendered and sexual identities and practices. A transnational perspective requires that we be attentive to the accelerated flows of people, goods, and knowledges and how this results in the intensification of linkages and relationships amongst and between disparate peoples and places (Valentine et al. 2012). To date, transnational scholarship has largely focused on transnational flows of migrants, labor, diaspora communities, commodities, and cultural product (Crang et al. 2003; Massey 1994). What we want to focus on here is a transnational perspective that considers the “dynamic networks that exchange ideas, values, cultural practices and information across national borders” and how this can constitute places and social relations within complex relational geographies (Valentine et al. 2012: 51; Olsen and Silvey 2006; see also Massey, 1994; Adey 2006; Jensen 2011). Places are constituted in and through the movement of people, commodities, and knowledges and the reworked material and social relationships between objects, including the knowledge, capacities, and meanings (Jones 2009). “Place” is therefore understood as an agglomeration of material and social flows, and places are never closed or isolated but open and fluid. “Place” is thus an imagined and material set of relations that are multiscalar, from the translocal to transnational.

Utilizing a transnational framework, we can examine how opposition to LGBT rights discourses circulates across and through transnational or international places such as Canada and Great Britain, connecting and constituting understandings of place in particular ways. These transnational networks exhibit interactions, complexities, and nuances that refashion arguments unevenly and across multiple scales. We understand these networks as distinctive from the globalizing US Christian Right anti-LGBT activism. Indeed, far from being coherent, the unstable and mobile ideas, meanings, and knowledges move unevenly across multiple, heterogeneous, networked, and interlinked places. This is not to say that LGBT opponents in Canada and Britain do not come into contact or intersect with some of these organizations. However, it is to argue that exploring the international flows of people, money,

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and resources requires moves beyond a singular focus on US Christian Rights activism (Reimer 2003; Chappell 2006; McDonald 2010). This renders invisible the geographical and temporal specificities of oppositional organizations and their different manifestations at multiple scales. In understanding these networks and their import, we need to take into account the particular historical and cultural specificities of place and how oppositional and resistive discourses (or fragments thereof) defy a straightforward and unified depiction of resistances (see Bean et al. 2008). Therefore, a transnational perspective means we need to attend to multiple and uneven transnational effects without overlooking the uniqueness of distinctive locations (Bean et al. 2008).

Resistances to LGBT Equalities in Canada and Britain

LGBT rights have been hotly contested in both Canada and Britain over the last few decades and the nature and substance of the arguments against LGBT rights has changed significantly. For example, in the United Kingdom, Section 28 of the Local Government Act in 1992 sought to prevent the “promotion of homosexuality” and opponents labeled gay relationships as “pretended” (see for example, Burack and Wilson 2012). The current legislative landscape, following the Equalities Act of 2010, sees sexuality and gender identities as “protected characteristics,” with legal imperatives to address discrimination. In Canada, those opposed to gay and lesbian rights in the early 1990s claimed the need to protect children from predatory gays and lesbians and argued that homosexuality was a mental illness (Nash 2005). By 2013, gays and lesbians in Canada have equality rights including same-sex marriage and the protection of children has morphed into arguments about the need for a mother and a father.

With the advent of Conservative rule, both countries have experienced the emergence of various forms of resistance to LGBT equalities as the implications of their enactment become visible in everyday life. Yet, the conservative governments in both Canada and Britain continue to overtly support LGBT rights nationally and globally, despite pressure from party membership and the grassroots to repudiate same-sex marriage and to act to safeguard “religious liberties.” As a matter of foreign policy both conservative govern- ments have been vocal proponents of LGBT rights abroad, condemning persecution and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and taking a strong stand at the United Nations.

In this research, we used Internet searches, searches of news articles and links from other organizations to identify key oppositional organizations in Canada and Britain, be- tween November 2012 and February 2013. We found that most of the organizations in Canada and Britain are loosely linked ideologically through commitments to a variety of causes sheltering under the so-called “culture of life” banner that draws into its or- bit groups that are some combination of antiabortion, anti-euthanasia, antigay marriage, pro-traditional family. Under this banner, groups tend to downplay the hardcore religious opposition in Canada/Britain in favor of what might be seen as a more broadly acceptable discussion about Canadian/British society (its health, strength, and continuation, see also Nash and Browne 2014).

In the Canadian context, there is a loosely networked grouping of organizations bridging local, regional national, and transnational sites, fostered and maintained through informal personal contacts (meeting at conferences, guest speakers) and shared discur- sive/ideological understanding. Forty-one organizations were found to be actively engaged in various forms of resistance to LGBT and queer initiatives and constitute a complex and multiple-layered network of conservative and/or largely Christian organizations.3

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Several of these organizations have been in operation for quite some time and are well funded with a strong national media presence through publications, radio and televi- sion shows, Facebook pages, Twitter sites, and electronic newsletters. Others are more recent and more locally based, often having emerged in response to specific issues such as sex education in schools or objections to gender identity protections in human rights legislation. They take many forms, from charitable organizations providing infor- mation on parenting and creating strong (heterosexual families) to legal defense funds, Christian Youth organizations and institutes, and think tanks generating research about such things as Canadian family structure or mental health issues. Contemporary debates have focused on “rights” of children to two biological, opposite-sex parents and rights of parents to determine a child’s education. These are strongly linked to the ideology of “natural marriage.” There are also growing claims for religious freedom, that is, the ability to express religiously based opprobrium of homosexual acts and lifestyles, as not being “homophobic.”

Resistance to LGBT equalities is entrenched in Britain and indeed is developing and galvanizing. Forty-nine organizations were identified and there are connections be- tween church organizations, political parties, think tanks, and government. Whilst many religious LGBT resistance organizations have adopted the traditional Biblical opposition to homosexuality, a more compassionate, and arguably subtler, rationalization has also been put forth by organizations with a larger secular following. These groups, how- ever, often share leaders or other links with more extreme religious groups. Organi- zations are at times single issue (such as reparative therapies) but more often operate across multiple issues and seek to connect with each other through organizations such as the Coalition for Marriage. The areas that are contemporaneously being contested in Britain include children (parenting, education, and family structure), tensions between religious and LGBT rights, and the need to change or address “same-sex attraction.” Same-sex/gay marriage dominates debates and this is unsurprising as, during the period in which this research was being undertaken (November–January 2012–2013), there was a consultation (2012) and key vote (February 2013) on the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill.

It was clear throughout our research that there is a globally circulating discourse pro- mulgated by a growing transnational cast of Christian Right and conservative organizations (Buss and Herman 2003). What is interesting is that there are twice as many organizations in Canada compared to Britain relative to population and this speaks to the rising resis- tances to LGBT equalities in Britain and their embeddedness in the Canadian context. This is key in understanding why British organizations are looking to Canada, and why Canada is speaking to/about Britain. We will now turn to explore these links between Canada and Britain, as we found numerous examples of how these organizations spoke about each other’s national contexts, as well as to activists in their development of arguments to op- pose LGBT equalities in their specific local and national contexts. Whilst the focus has been on the United States in transnational circulations, Canadian and UK groups offer insights into specific and direct linkages outside of the brokered networks, such as the UN and other US-dominated networks/arenas. It is clear from our data, and we will go on to show, that there is a particular set of networks emerging, perhaps facilitated in part by a previous linked history, but what we can establish from our research is that this is being developed within contemporary frames. Exploring Canada and Britain then develops think- ing about LGBT resistances and human rights circulations that offer critical engagements with norm diffusions and moves beyond a US-centric approach to resistances to LGBT equalities.

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Transnational Engagements: Letters From Canada

In this section, we focus on how opponents of same-sex marriage in Canada frame the im- pacts of same-sex marriage negatively and represent these as a warning to other countries about the risks of embracing same-sex marriage. We then turn to Britain to show how the Canadian experience of same-sex marriage is constructed and deployed in local circum- stances as an argument against same-sex marriage legislation. Here, we will examine in depth one article that highlights some of the transnational methodologies deployed. We do so to highlight the multiscalar constructions of heteronormative values and discourses that refuse to be confined to particular places and indeed draw on place to challenge and question LGBT human rights gains.

At the transnational level, a number of Canadian organizations have direct ties or con- nections with British groups through direct involvement in conferences such as the World Congress of Families (US) or through reporting on and raising awareness for perceived “antifamily” policies at the United Nations or the European Union. For example, the World Congress of Families (WCF), founded in 1997 and largely sponsored by US evangelical groups, has emerged as a major international forum, bringing together pro-family orga- nizations from around the world. Canadian and British groups often send representatives to attend the Congress. In 2011, REAL Women of Canada (RWC) and Christian Concern from Britain were listed as “Partner” organizations forging what the organizations call “an international alliance of pro-family organizations” (WCF flyer n.d.).4

National, profamily organizations such as REAL Women of Canada have forged transnational relationships with British (and US) organizations and a United Nations pres- ence as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council that work to promote the “natural family” on the global stage. This participation underscores the growing transnational resistances to LGBT rights operating through “profamily” ideological networks. As we show elsewhere, the “natural family,” consisting of heteronormative couples and children are seen as the “best for soci- ety” (see Nash and Browne 2014), a solely heterosexual version of what Zivi (this issue) calls repronormativity. As a participant in the World Conference of Families in 2009, REAL Women (RW) presented a paper documenting the negative impacts of same-sex marriage. In that paper, they made specific reference to the impacts of British sexual orientation policies and the 2006 Equality Act arguing that these had resulted in “requiring schools, private businesses and all social agencies to conform to homosexual ideology” (RW 2009: 2–3).

In pointing out the impacts of LGBT equalities gains, RW asserted the need for an “inter-religious co-operation” at the transnational level, arguing that despite the fact that these gains are made on a state-by-state basis, the effects are no longer confined to that country and have

far-reaching ramifications for families and freedom of religion far beyond each country’s borders. . . . [What] takes place in one country rapidly occurs in another, resulting in considerable “collateral damage.” (RWC 2009)

This perspective provides the justification these organizations need to both directly and indirectly participate in other countries’ internal debates on issues related to LGBT rights.

In a February 24, 2013 article for the Interim, “Canada’s Life and Family Newspaper,” the author, Rory Leishman issues a warning to the British about its passage of same-sex

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marriage legislation. His article was in response to a letter signed by 1,000 British Catholic priests and bishops to the British government arguing that implementing same-sex marriage in Britain would mark the “onset of a new age of religious persecution in Britain” (Leishman 2013). Sex, marriage, and the British equalities laws, they claimed, would severely restrict “the abilities of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools, charitable institutions or places of worship” (quoted in Leishman 2013).

Despite reassurances about religious protections by British Prime Minister David Cameron, Leishman argues that the proposed law would affect religious freedom more broadly, noting that “judging from the Canadian experience, people in England have good reason for skepticism.”

Leishman uses various Canadian examples as “proof” that the faithful in Britain have cause for concern about religious freedom given the Canadian experience with same-sex marriage. As evidence, he discusses the case of a British Columbia schoolteacher who wrote letters to a local paper and was disciplined by the local school board for discriminatory comments and creating a hostile environment for LGBT students. He raises a Canadian case about a teacher in British Columbia who began writing antigay newspaper editorials as early as 1998, some seven years before same-sex marriage became legal. The local legal entanglements had nothing to do with same-sex marriage but, in his retelling of the tale, Leishman utilizes a suggestive framing of events to intimate that the issue was somehow linked to the implementation of same-sex marriage, which did not occur until 2005. Losing the local here allows Leishman to make arguments about national contexts that then become transnational in their applicability to Britain.

Leishman also addresses British concerns about the ability of parents to withdraw their children from classes that might conflict with the home’s religious beliefs. He cites several Quebec court cases related to the Catholic boards’ requirement to teach a “world religions” course under the province’s curriculum requirements, a course that only in the most oblique way might have some link to teaching about LGBT equalities. Leishman notes that students are being “encouraged to think for themselves” about divergent beliefs and ethical teachings about everything from abortion to same-sex marriage, ideas that might offend parents’ “deeply-held religious beliefs.” The courts held that parents did not have the right to remove their children from the class nor did a school have the right to refuse to teach that course.

What Leishman fails to sufficiently flesh out (or perhaps deliberately overlooks) is the unique and distinctive history the province of Quebec has with the Catholic Church and the battles between secularism and faith raging since the end of the Second World War (e.g., Maclure and Taylor 2011; Savage and Stuart 2011; Adelman and Anctil 2013). While the Catholic Church might have a global presence, the local context is needed for understanding the complexity of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision and why the courts reasoning has largely no comparative usefulness in understanding the implications of same-sex marriage in Britain. The local geographical specificity and historical context is lost in Leishman’s deployment of this narrative into transnational circulation of ideas and values that evacuate the nuanced meanings inherent in the Quebec situation in favor of building a coherent transnational set of discourses—discourses that, as we shall see, travel, creating new arguments in very different regional and national contexts.

These examples illustrate that Canadian organizations such as REAL Women or prolife advocates are actively engaged in ways that demonstrate the usefulness of a transnational perspective that directs our attention to the flows of people, ideals, and values that constitute increasingly complex networks and linkages that cross national boundaries and, in fact, are trans-scalar. REAL Women, for example, operates at a national level in Canada but has a

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considerable international presence. Individuals such as Leishman, utilizing an online web- based forum, are able to rework local and regional (e.g., Quebec) Canadian narratives and deploy them as “evidence” of or as a cautionary tale to other nations, in this case Britain, about the implications of same-sex marriage without acknowledging the specificities of local circumstances. These activities reconstitute the “places” as locations of religious prosecution because of the ways in which discriminations are addressed.

Britain: The Slippery Slope

When dealing with the supposedly national debate in Britain regarding the Marriage (Same- Sex) Bill in 2011–2012,5 it was clear that arguments were being deployed to create narratives that drew on transnational discourses, which sought to reiterate the privileged position of heterosexualities. One key narrative used in this debate pertained directly to Canada and the dangers of same-sex marriage that had been experienced in this context. Thus, British organizations were listening to and reiterating some of the discussions “sent” to them by Canadian activists, such as Leishman. In examining how these touched down in Britain, we can see how transnational framings influence narratives in different national contexts.

Key in the framing of the resistances to same-sex marriage in Britain was “seeing” and portraying the ills that befall other places that adopt this legislation. Linking to the Whalcott case where the Supreme Court of Canada recently found several pamphlets publically distributed by William Whalcott that contained antigay biblical passages to be “hate speech,” one organizer contended:

Dear Reform Members We are deeply concerned about the pernicious and mostly unacknowledged ramifications of this legislation culturally, legally, financially, and in terms of education and the Church. . . . In Canada ([same-sex marriage] was legalized in 2005) even where evangelicals can still technically “preach the gospel” it is increasingly difficult if not impossible to go to such minefields as these. Having been steeped in the culture of LGBT Equalities/Rights etc.—it is in the very air they breathe—congregations hear pastors as being homophobic and “anti-gay” if they try to address these topics. Fewer dare to do that now. It is just not worth it! Dr Lisa Nolland Convenor, Marriage, Sex and Culture Group, Anglican Mainstream

Dr. Nolland points out how “steeping in the culture of LGBT Equalities/Rights etc.” changes the way one might actually hear the gospel. Those who might object are silenced through accusations of “homophobia” in a climate of fear that “fewer dare” to question.

Commentators argue that once “gay marriage” became legal in Canada, critics were and are silenced in courts, human-rights commissions, and employment boards. More than this, the powerful critique of homophobia and being labeled as “homophobic” prevents arguments being made that would “defend” particular heteronormative privileges:

Same-sex “marriage” became law in Canada in the summer of 2005, making the country the fourth nation to pass such legislation, and the first in the English- speaking world. In the few debates leading up to the decision, it became almost impossible to argue in defence of marriage as a child-centred institution, or in defence of the procreative norm of marriage, or in defence of the superiority

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of two-gender parenthood, without being accused of hatred and bigotry. Once “gay marriage” became legal, Canadians also discovered that critics are often silenced by the coercive force of the law. It has been estimated that, in less than five years, there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings—in courts, human-rights commissions, and employment boards—against critics and op- ponents of same-sex marriage. And this situation doesn’t take into account the casual dismissals from employment that have occurred. In 2011, by way of one example, a well-known television journalist on a major sports show was fired just hours after he tweeted his support for “the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage”. He had merely been defending a hockey player’s agent who was receiving numerous death threats and other abuse for refusing to support a pro-gay-marriage campaign. The case is still under appeal. Marantha

The dangers of Canada relate to a national legal system that is not seen as protecting LGBT people but instead prosecuting and targeting those who support “the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage.” What is interesting is how the national context is constructed as a warning to Britain—you too could suffer with “unnecessary” and multiple (the figure of 200–300 is dubiously related to same-sex marriage) court cases as well as a lack of “free speech.” Here the legal system is seen to persecute traditionalists (rather than protect LGBT people).

The accusation of “hatred and bigotry” is read as preventing what are seen as “rea- sonable” demands. Here, it is not the “true” context of Canada that is at stake, rather the construction of this nation serves to generate arguments against the Marriage (Same-Sex) Bill. It appears that as national mythologies about acceptance and diversity change, this is understood as leaving out those who want to privilege heteronormative values and practices. The dangers then of Canada are used to create national interventions and discourses.

More than dealing with the current context, this geographical imagining of Canada also pertains to potential future legislation that supposedly “naturally” emerges from the passing of same-sex marriage. The “slippery slope” argument suggests that same-sex marriage supposedly opened Canada (as well as other contexts) up to the legal recognition of incest and polygamy:

• It is incorrect to say that the change will strengthen marriage: if it is enacted, there will be no reason in principle why polygamy (or indeed any other kind of alternative arrangement) should not also be made lawful.

• This is not fanciful. Precisely this trend can be seen in Canada and the Netherlands, both of which permit same-sex marriage. It is the logical consequence of allowing minority rights to ride roughshod over the will of the majority and the norms of society.

• Those who seek legal recognition of polygamy will be encouraged by the statement in the consultation that “The Government is committed to building a fairer society and ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunities for all, including people of all religions.” (Evangelical Alliance)

The Evangelical Alliance attempts to link same-sex marriage as a precedent to the legal- ization of polygamy through using the supposed success of this line of argument in Canada (and the Netherlands). Yet, in Canada the defendants in the “Bountiful” case who tried to use same-sex marriage as a defense or for recognition lost and there has been no appeal.

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These groups, however, never mention this. Instead discussions of human rights, consider- ations of “fair treatment” and “equal opportunities” are portrayed as opening up dangerous precedents. These are “logical consequences” of same-sex marriage where the “majority” (presumably all heterosexuals) will lose out to a “minority” through the latter gaining equalities. Numbers are again important, and the deployment of “the majority” seeks to po- sition these groups nationally and transnationally as representing (and protecting) broader societies from the imminent dangers that equalities apparently create.

These discourses illustrate one way that transnational discourses create national con- texts. In particular, it suggests that Canada’s “experience” will be replicated in Britain. The “dangers” of same-sex marriage here pertain not to the loss of the privileges of het- eronormativities as a result of same-sex marriage but instead to the ongoing effects of these “liberal” agendas. This creates a very different imagining of Canada than that purported by those who see it as open, accepting, and leading the way. Rather, this nation is constructed as becoming dangerous, exclusionary, and othering because of the legalizing of same-sex marriage.

Evoking “Canada” in this manner “proves” that the threat to Britain is real and not “fan- ciful” because it is a reality “elsewhere.” Imaginings of place, coupled with key examples and figures from one nation are informing campaigning in another. Therefore, the transna- tional circulation of discourses operates not only in the deployment of similar arguments but also through the imagining of other countries as failed and warnings.

Conclusion

This article has explored some of the transnational networks between those resisting LGBT equalities. In understanding resistance to LGBT rights claims, we have shown how values and tactics, as well as support systems operate across national boundaries, reforming na- tional and local debates. Taken together, these examples illustrate the increasingly transna- tional opposition to LGBT rights and same-sex marriage through a consideration of the overlapping ideologies visible in Great Britain and Canadian organizations, think tanks, and public policy institutes. These take a variety of forms from political engagement in organizations such as the UN, think tanks working under the banner of “research,” and data collections to individual editorials. What is interesting is how these can be based on poten- tial problems that are read through the dubious reframing of Canadian experiences, a place that has already enacted same-sex marriage legislation and can therefore both speak of, and be spoken about, in understanding the results of this. Thus, not only do interconnections across and between British and Canadian entities result in intertwined networks across local, regional, national, and transnational scales, these re-create social and political ac- tivisms. Understanding these requires thinking through multidirectional networks of flows of people, information, ideologies, and knowledges that have local and specific manifes- tations rather than being homogeneously globalized (emerging from the United States) or unidirectional moving from the Global North to the Global South. More than this, it shows that we need to be attentive to the complex interrelationships between organizations and activisms in the Global North, beyond assumptions of the “spreading” of the US Christian Right.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Heather Maguire for her outstanding work in supporting the production of this article.

Resisting LGBT Rights Where “We Have Won” 333

Funding

This article is focused on research that was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) (grant #403-2012-0032).

Notes

1. Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity fits with the gender they are assigned at birth and the gender that they are read as.

2. We use Great Britain to refer to England, Scotland, and Wales because this is the focus of our article, which does not include Northern Ireland. The UK/United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland and so we do not use this term. We use British/Britain throughout the article.

3. There have been numerous attempts over the last decade or so to build alliances across religious divides including coalitions between Muslims, Jews, and Christian Evangelical organizations. These have been largely driven by responses to single events and have not been sustainable (Herman 1994; Malloy 2011).

4. We do not reference any of the online material in this article for ethical reasons, which include giving online traffic and validity to the websites through their association with an academic journal.

5. The Marriage (Same Sex) Act was passed in 2013, with the first marriages in March 2014; as these data were collected in 2011–2012, it does not reflect on this “victory,” which we hope to do in future work.

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