ABSTRACT
It is may be both surprising and challenging to encounter a chapter on queer people in a volume on religion, spirituality and social work. For many people, both queer and non-queer, the very notion that we might talk about religion and spirituality at the same time we consider sexual and gender minorities is epistemologically dissonant. These seem to be exclusive categories that simply do not ft together in either historical or contemporary discourse. Yet a major task of a minoritised identity or experience of difference is to make sense of that identity or difference (Park and Folkman 1997; Plattner and Meiring 2006; Solomon 2012). If we understand spirituality as a kind of meaning making activity (Lips-Wiersma 2002), then there is something quite spiritual about a minoritised or marginalised individual’s search for meaning. On the other hand, religions, which are formalised institutions with specific codes of beliefs, practices and boundaries that usually reflect dominant social norms, often have difficulties managing differences of the sexual kind (Boellstorff 2005; Buchanan et al. 2001; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1986; Fone 2000; Siraj 2012). The challenge to social work, with its core principles of social justice and human rights, and its mandate to respect diversities (International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW] and the International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW] 2014), is to support clients, and the families, institutions and policymakers with which they engage, to manage these differences and challenges. Providing a perspective from which to do that is the goal of this chapter.
