Marriage, Sexuality, and Gender examines contemporary debates about the meaning and value of marriage. The book analyzes arguments for traditional marriage, including those of neonaturalists, utilitarians, and communitarians or virtue theorists. The volume also considers a range of feminist, welfarist, and liberationist arguments for ending the institution altogether. It evaluates two major reform movements: one focused on expanding marriage to include same-sex couples and the other focused on the use of law to render marriage more internally just. The book concludes with a plea to activists to redirect "marriage equality" movements toward the creation of an entirely secular "civil union law" that would respect a broader range of private life-long commitments, including but not limited to same- and opposite-sex couples, without threatening the role of religious marriage in the lives of those who embrace it and without penalizing nonparticipants.

The Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality, and Gender presents an unrivalled overview of the theological study of sexuality and gender. These topics are not merely contentious and pervasive: they have escalated in importance within theology. Theologians increasingly agree that even the very doctrine of God cannot be contemplated without a prior grappling with each. Featuring 41 newly-commissioned essays, written by some of the foremost scholars in the discipline, this authoritative collection presents and develops the latest thinking in these areas. Divided into eight thematic sections, the Handbook explores: methodological approaches; contributions from neighbouring disciplines; sexuality and gender in the Bible, and in the Christian tradition; controversies within the churches, and within four of the non-Christian faiths; and key concepts and issues. The final, extended section considers theology in relation to married people and families; gay and lesbian people; bisexual people; intersex and transgender people; disabled people; and to friends. This volume is an essential reference for students and scholars, which will also stimulate further research.

Why did it take so long for the United Church of Canada to respond to violence against women? Tracy J. Trothen looks at the United Church as a uniquely Canadian institution, and explores how it has approached gender and sexuality issues. She argues that how the Church deals with these issues influences its ability to name violence against women. In examining the Church’s early approaches to gender and sexuality, Tracy J. Trothen discovered that the United Church had tended to see certain structures or roles as sacred and others as demonic. For example, while sex outside marriage was bad or improper, sexual expression within marriage was largely deemed as proper or good, no matter what manifestation it took. This assumption allowed much violence within families and marriages to go unchallenged. Trothen uncovers significant shifts in this approach through the examination of such issues as redemptive homes, marriage, pornography, abortion, the ordination of women, and family. Then, analyzing three recent case studies, she demonstrates the value of women’s voices in challenging dominant world views. Finally, she suggests how the Church’s approach to human sexuality and gender has facilitated or obstructed the move to address violence against women. The findings in Linking Sexuality and Gender can be applied to faiths outside the United Church and will be important to anyone interested in church and society, sexuality, gender, or the causal dynamics behind one Canadian institution’s response to violence against women. Tracy J. Trothen is an assistant professor of systematic theology and ethics, and director of field education at Queen’s Theological College, Queen’s University, Canada. She was ordained in the United Church of Canada. Why did it take so long for the United Church of Canada to respond to violence against women?

Gender policies from Portuguese colonialism, through Frelimo socialism, to later neo-liberal economic regimes share certain basic assumptions about women, men and gender relations - but to what extent do such assumptions fit the ways in which rural Mozambican men and women see themselves?

Rev. ed. of: The gender of sexuality / Pepper Schwartz, Virginia Rutter. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, c1998.

This collection of articles present a variety of broadly-Christian responses to issues such as sexuality and gender, sexuality and spirituality, gay and lesbian sexuality, sexuality and violence, sexuality and singleness, and the family.

This book explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. It focuses on four key areas: Buddhist history, contemporary culture, Buddhist symbols, and homosexuality, and it covers Buddhism's entire history, from its origins to the present day. The result of original and innovative research, the author offers new perspectives on the history of the attitudes toward, and of the self-perception of, women in both ancient and modern Buddhist societies. He explores key social issues such as abortion, he examines the use of rhetoric and symbols in Buddhist texts and cultures, and he discusses the neglected subject of Buddhism and homosexuality.

Over several decades, scholarship in New Testament and early Christianity has drawn attention both to the ways in which ancient Mediterranean conceptions of embodiment, sexual difference, and desire were fundamentally different from modern ones and also to important lines of genealogical connection between the past and the present. The result is that the study of "gender" and "sexuality" in early Christianity has become an increasingly complex undertaking. This is a complexity produced not only by the intricacies of conflicting historical data, but also by historicizing approaches that query the very terms of analysis whereby we inquire into these questions in the first place. Yet at the same time, recent work on these topics has produced a rich and nuanced body of scholarly literature that has contributed substantially to our understanding of early Christian history and also proved relevant to ongoing theological and social debates. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament provides a roadmap to this lively scholarly landscape, introducing both students and other scholars to the relevant problems, debates, and issues. Leading scholars in the field offer original contributions by way of synthesis, critical interrogation, and proposals for future questions, hypotheses, and research trajectories.

From the beginning, both Robert Kirkman's comics and AMC's series of The Walking Dead have brought controversy in their presentations of race, gender and sexuality. Critics and fans have contended that the show's identity politics have veered toward the decidedly conservative, offering up traditional understandings of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality, racial hierarchy and white supremacy. This collection of new essays explores the complicated nature of relationships among the story's survivors. In the end, characters demonstrate often-surprising shifts that consistently comment on identity politics. Whether agreeing or disagreeing with critics, these essays offer a rich view of how gender, race, class and sexuality intersect in complex new ways in the TV series and comics.

As the field of sexuality studies has become a growth area in academia and classes on sexuality studies are incorporated into various disciplines, the expanding book market has been filled with specialist oriented texts which are often theoretically focused and contain too many summaries for an undergraduate audience. Addressing this imbalance, this key new volume presents the field of sexuality in an accessible and engaging way for undergraduates. Breaking new ground, both substantively and stylistically, this book offers students, academics and researchers an accessible, engaging introduction and overview of this emerging field. Its central premise is to explore the social character of sexuality, the role of social differences such as race or nationality in creating sexual variation, and the ways sex is entangled in relations of power and inequality. Through this novel approach, the field of sexuality is considered, for the first time, in multicultural, global, and comparative terms and from a truly social perspective. This important volume consists of over fifty short and original essays on the key topics and themes in sexuality studies, and interviews with twelve leading scholars in the field which convey some of the most innovative work being done. Each contribution clearly conveys the latest research with examples. Ideal for students of gender and sexuality studies, this topical and timely volume will be an invaluable resource to all those with an interest in sexuality studies.