The Effects of Islam, Religiosity, and Socialization on Muslim-Canadian Opinions about Same-Sex Marriage

COMPARATIVE MIGRATION STUDIES www.comparativemigrationstudies.org Published by: Amsterdam University Press The Efffects of Islam, Religiosity, and Socialization on Muslim-Canadian Opinions about Same-Sex Marriage Christopher Cochrane CMS 1 (1): 147–178 DOI: 10.5117/CMS2013.1.COCH Abstract Critics of Islam often frame anti-Islamic positions as a defense of tolerance against intolerance, and of equality against inequality. Islam, for this perspective, poses challenges for the ideological integration of Muslim immigrants in Western societies. This paper examines Canadian Muslims’ opinions about same-sex marriage. The analysis suggests that Canadian Muslims, as a group, do have distinctively negative opinions about same-sex marriage, but that there is substantial and systematic variation in opinions about this issue within the Muslim-Canadian community. Indeed, it is religiosity in general, rather than Islam in particular, that generates negative opinions about gay marriage. Exposure to the Canadian context, and especially postsecondary education, largely undoes the distinctiveness of Canadian Muslims’ opinions about this issue. Keywords: Islam, Muslims, Immigration, Public Opinion, Same-Sex Marriage 1. Introduction In January 2007, the town of Hérouxville, Québec, Canada drafted a series of resolutions aimed at prospective immigrants. The most controversial resolution prohibited the stoning of women in public. “Nous considérons que les hommes et les femmes sont égaux et ont la même valeur,” the document proclaims, reafffijirming the community’s basic commitment to the fundamental rights of women, including their right to walk unaccompanied in public, attend school, and operate a vehicle (Municipalité de Hérouxville, 2010). The anti-Muslim sentiment that inspired these resolutions was CMS 2013, VOL. 1, NO. 1 147 COMPAR ATIVE MIGR ATION STUDIES certainly unusual in its candor (Bouchard and Taylor, 2008). But it was not unusual in its form. Critics of Islam in Canada and across the Western world often frame anti-Islamic positions as a defense of tolerance against intolerance, and of equality against inequality (Akkerman, 2005, 2010; Betz and Meret, 2009; Ehrkamp, 2010; Mepschen, Duyvendak and Tonkens, 2010; Razak, 2008; Shachar, 2000). Acceptance of sexual diversity in particular, which is a very recent phenomenon in Western countries, is a core tenet of a new “cultural citizenship” in democratic societies that is often invoked against Muslims and against Islam (Mepschen, Duyvendak and Tonkens, 2010; see also Fassin, 2010). Most of the research on Muslim immigration is focused on the European context, where levels of Muslim immigration, and the political backlash against it, are far more extensive than in the Canadian case (Adida, Laitin and Valfort, 2010; Bleich, 2003, 2009; Bevelander and Otterbeck, 2010; Connor, 2010; Ehrkamp, 2010; Fekete, 2008; Fetzer and Soper, 2003; Scheepers, Gijsberts and Coenders, 2002; Semyonov, Raijman and Gorodzeisky, 2006; Shadid, 1991; Sniderman et al., 2000; Strabac and Listhaug, 2008; Zolberg and Litt Woon, 1999). Debates about Muslim immigration, however, are increasingly important to Canada. The size of the Canadian Muslim population more than doubled between the 1991 and 2001 censuses, and this growth has continued apace. Worldwide population and migration patterns mean that Muslims will comprise an increasing share of immigrants to Canada for the next several years. By 2030, the number of Muslims in Canada is estimated to triple, from 940 thousand to 2.7 million, or 6.6 percent of the national population (Pew Research Center, 2011). Canada has the second highest per-capita immigration rate in the OECD, and the proportion of foreign-born (and non-British) citizens has never fallen below 13 percent in the country’s 144 year history (Chui, Tran and Maheux, 2007). Indeed, multiculturalism is so entrenched in Canada that many consider it a signature characteristic of the country’s political culture (Eliadis, 2007). In the 2006 World Values Survey, less than 3 percent of Canadians indicated that they did not want “people of a diffferent race” as neighbors; less than 2.5 percent said the same thing about “immigrants,” and fewer still said the same about “people of a diffferent religion” (European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association, 2010). Even so, Muslim immigrants in particular are often singled out for the supposed incompatibility of Islam with core liberal values, especially regarding homosexuality and the rights of women (Razak, 2008). These arguments appear to be resonating in Canadian public opinion. More than two thirds of Canadians perceive an “irreconcilable” conflict between Islamic and 148 CMS 2013, VOL. 1, NO. 1 THE EFFEC TS OF ISL AM, RELIGIOSIT Y, AND SOCIALIZATION Western societies (Leger Marketing Research, 2011), and, in the World Values Survey, nearly 12 percent of Canadians, and nearly one in four Quebecers, did not want Muslims as neighbors (European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association, 2010). Indeed, less than half of all Canadians hold a positive perception of Muslims (Jedwab, 2011). In this respect, the Canadian public opinion environment resembles those in many European countries, including the Netherlands (Mepschen, Duyvendak and Tonkens, 2010: 965). This paper examines the level and drivers of Canadian Muslims’ opinions about the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. The recognition of same-sex marriage by the Parliament of Canada in 2005 is among the signature liberal achievements in Canadian politics in the past half-Century. This achievement did not happen all of a sudden. It was the culmination of a decades-long pattern of political activism and social movement politics, as well a series of legal, political and public opinion shifts regarding gays and lesbians. In the 1982 World Values Survey, a majority of Canadians, 51 percent, expressed the view that homosexuality was “never justifijiable;” that fijigure fell to 37 percent in 1990, 26 percent in 2000, and 20 percent in 2006. Nowadays, a majority of Canadians (61%) support same-sex marriage, and an overwhelming majority (85%) support at least some form of legal recognition for same-sex couples (Ipsos, 2011). Nonetheless, the recognition of same-sex marriage rights was staunchly opposed by the leaders of major religious groups in Canada–including Catholic, Muslim, Jewish and other leaders–and this opposition remains a legitimate conservative position in Canadian political discourse. In this respect, opinions about same-sex relationships are a high bar to use in assessing the extent to which people’s opinions are “compatible” with a liberal cultural environment. Drawing an analytical boundary around the category “Muslim” risks privileging from the outset explanations that draw attention to the lone characteristic that all Muslims, by defijinition, share in common: Islam. As a group, however, Muslims are disti (...truncated)