Why Europe Is Lesbian and Gay Friendly (and Why America Never Will Be)

Chapter 3: Christian Values and Welfare

43 Chapter 3  Christian Values and Welfare In Chapter 2 I mapped a genealogy of a consensus about the value of welfare to Europeans. While acknowledging differences in the typology literature with regard to points of delivery and emphasis on collective or individual responsibility, Manow’s work1 delineates the role of Christian (Catholic, Protestant, and Reformed Protestant ) values as historically inscribed in welfare regimes. In this chapter , I continue this consideration of welfare values, picking up the theme of the relationship between Christianity and welfare provision in Europe. First, I consider the rise of European secularization and explore Norris and Inglehart’s analysis that secularization is largely a security issue. Next, I look at the way in which Christian values inform welfare provision, for example, through the role of the voluntary sector. In general, my argument is that how Christian values manifest in welfare policies, and the investment of Christian agencies as stakeholders in welfare, matter to the development of lesbian- and gay-friendly policies. Examining church–state relations is essential to an analysis of welfare values, polices, and practices. Frank Castles makes a distinctive contribution to understanding “family of nations” that he and Obinger explain as having “similarities deriving from affinities of descent, imperial ties, common legal or religious cultures, diffusion and deliberately chosen membership of political and economic unions.”2 In identifying linguistic connections between English-speak- 44 Why Europe Is Lesbian and Gay Friendly ing, ­ German-speaking, and Scandinavian countries, his work was influenced by Rokkan’s notion of national characteristics that are embedded in historical trajectories of development.3 Under this rubric, Castles attempts to account for religious and cultural traditions that define appropriate behavior and parameters of personal conduct as independent variables in determining welfare regimes. However, in this model, religious groups are constructed as interest groups that make demands along side other interest groups. The model does not account for the integration of ideas across welfare politics and the existence of overlapping elites in the policymaking process.4 Instead, this model implies that religious voices and values are less important in a secularized public square, although this is not the case. Even in countries with a noticeable move toward secularization, religion remains a potent source of values.5 Churches or faith-based institutions are potent not just as interest groups or political actors but because their values inform and are rearticulated through welfare policy and practices. In this chapter, I explore the way in which Christian agencies in the voluntary sector play an important role in welfare provision, policymaking, and influencing welfare values. In doing so, I borrow from Katzenstein understanding of churches not as interest groups but as “parapublic institutions” with a heightened status and special public recognition that links private and public sectors, and as such are strategic, value-driven political actors.6 The idea that church and state are interdependent is not a new observation in welfare literature. However, the extent of that interdependency is sometimes overlooked. For example, Minkenberg states, “current classifications of church–state relations in Western democracies must operate on the basis of the churches’ historical decision (after 1945) to principally accept the idea of a separation of state and church and of liberal democracy including the notion of human rights and religious freedoms.”7 Robertson argues that church–state relations emerge from the backdrop of a “self-consciously secular state.”8 But these arguments seem to overestimate the distance between the church and state. For example, the structure of contemporary welfare, where the state is highly dependent on faith-based welfare services, provides ample ground for conflicts of values as well as commitments of purpose. Church/faith-based welfare agencies offer an extensive resource for welfare both interdependent with, and in a mixed economy of care, often competing with, the state. 45 Christian Values and Welfare With a rise of secularization, the welfare tether between the church and state becomes the most tense around political wedge issues such as homosexuality.9 This is why state commitments to lesbian and gay citizens’ faring well become politically problematic where social conservative religious groups have significant political power and where they provide the state with substantial services with which to square the financial circle of welfare commitment. The following pages review the integration of Christian values and welfare provision concentrating on the implications this integration has for lesbian and gay citizens. In doing so, it constructs another aspect...