Divided Over Belonging: Cultural Underpinnings of Commitment to LGBT Religious Activism

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. LGBT Activism

Abstract

Why do individuals commit to social movement groups? Although a large body of scholarship has examined the factors shaping decisions to join social movements, few studies have identified the factors shaping commitment to social movements, other than to suggest that the same factors that explain micro-mobilization might explain social movement commitment. In this article, I draw on in-depth interviews with 65 participants in LGBT groups at four religious colleges and universities in the United States to build a new theory of commitment to social movements, one that takes seriously how the emerging dynamics between an individual and a social movement group might affect individuals’ levels of participation in that group. Specifically, I provide both quantitative and qualitative evidence that commitment to LGBT groups is contingent on the correspondence between a participant’s collective identity and an organization’s group ethos, with activist participants being drawn to direct action groups, religious participants being drawn to educational groups, and LGBT participants being drawn to solidarity groups. Conversely, I show that a lack of commitment is produced by a mismatch between collective identity and group ethos. I argue that these findings can help us understand commitment to social groups in a variety of social settings and thus connect to ongoing work not only in social movement studies but also the sociology of religion, cultural sociology, and the study of social solidarity more broadly.

Author

• Jonathan Scott Coley, Vanderbilt University