Secularisation and Politicisation ꟷ How Religious Contexts Shape the Impact of Same-Sex Marriage and Partnership Legislations on Public Attitudes towards Homosexuality in Europe

Many European countries have legislated to secure the equal rights of homosexual people on marriage or civil partnerships in recent years. Meanwhile public attitudes towards homosexuality have also been increasingly tolerant. However, previous studies on the impacts of permissive same-sex rights legislations on public attitudes towards homosexuality show inconclusive findings, mixed with null, positive, negative, or polarized impacts. This study argues that two religious contextual factors: secularization process and politicization on traditional morality, may enhance the cultural-religious conflict and influence the legislation impacts. Using eight rounds of European Social Survey (ESS) data (2002-2016) with fixed-effect models, I investigate how legislation impacts are shaped by religious contexts across European countries. First, the study shows that higher secularity level does not make people more positive to homosexuality after both marriage and partnership legislations. However, for both types of legislations, in more secular countries, public attitudes polarize more after legislations, as core church members become drastically more negative towards homosexuality, diverging from other people. Second, facilitated with Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) data, the study shows that in countries with more polarized politicization on traditional morality between political parties, both religious and non-religious people will be more negative towards homosexuality after partnership legislations. With higher polarized morality politicization, after marriage legislations, core church members also develop more homonegativity. The study adds to the knowledge of how the impacts of permissive same-sex rights legislation can be undermined or polarized in contexts with higher cultural-religious conflicts, shaped by secularization process and politicization on traditional morality. However, the findings should not be pessimistic, since most of the backlash impacts occurs on core church members, and there is overall a liberalizing trend of homosexual attitudes.