"In the name of God, love and inclusion"

Religious fundamentalism and homonormativity as devices of genocide in Palestine

Abstract

Many theological narratives are currently employed to legitimize both the exclusion and segregation of LGBTIQ+ people and the genocide of the Palestinian people; these issues present a considerable challenge to both theological scholarship and gender diversity studies in terms of the consequences of fundamentalist discourses that disseminate such narratives. This paper examines these issues in the context of the ongoing conflict in Palestine, from two broad thematic perspectives: first, it analyzes fundamentalism, understood as religious and theological poisoning, to explore the harmful theological interpretations that have been used to justify acts of extreme violence, perpetuating a cycle of hatred and exclusion; second, it studies homonormativity from its role in the consolidation of national unity, addressing the configuration of homonationalism and its relationship to the pinkwashing of the Israeli colonial project. The paper concludes that struggles for social justice and liberation must be approached in a holistic rather than fragmented manner. Queer/cuir/maricas liberation narratives and practices, from both a theological and socio-political perspective, must be connected to cis-heteropatriarchal covenant-breaking, decolonization, and solidarity community building.