Equal rites before the law: religious celebrations of same-sex relationships in the Netherlands, 1967-1970

2015 Mosse-lecture by David Bos

Lecture

David Bos (UvA) will discuss three spectacular, highly publicized cases. He will argue that religious institutions and traditions have not only posed an obstacle to non-heterosexual men and women, but offered them a repertoire of symbolic expression and contestation.

The legalization of same-sex marriage is commonly depicted as an achievement of LGBT-emancipation and of secularization. The fact that the Netherlands were the first country to open up civil marriage for same-sex couples is explained from the marginalization of churches, and from the 1994 defeat of the Christian Democratic party. However, precisely this party  had been the first to propose the legal recognition of  'alternative relationships'in the 1980s—which was then laughed off by the LGB-movement and the political Left. What is more,  in the 1960s and 1970s already religious solemnizations of same-sex relationships occurred in Catholic and mainline-Protestant churches. 

About the lecturer

David Bos holds a Master’s degree in theology (Groningen 1990) and a PhD in sociology (UvA 1999).  He worked as the editor-in-chief of the Netherlands leading mental health monthly (MGv), and as an assistant professor in Utrecht University’s Department of Religious Studies. In addition, as a postdoc, he did research on the social acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands.

At present, he is a lecturer in sociology at UvA and a postdoc at the Amsterdam Center for the Study of Lived Religion (VU), involved in a research project on the oppositional pairing of religion and homosexuality in contemporary public discourse in the Netherlands.

Registration

Entrance is free and no registration is required.

Published by  AISSR