Religious‐based homonegativity as a function of the endorsement of traditional gender norms

Abstract Religious individuals tend to express negative attitudes toward members of the LGB population. The explanations for this relationship have mostly pointed to endorsement of conservative and authoritarian ideological systems. However, the theoretical perspective of sexuality‐as‐gendered proposes that beliefs about gender norms and gender role expectations play a primary role in explaining the relationship, given religious motivations for social control of men and women and views that LGB individuals violate traditional gender expectations. Using two data sets representing 80,000 individuals across more than 60 countries, we test mediation models to determine the relative role of these different ideological systems. While conservative and authoritarian belief systems consistently play an important mediating role between religiosity and homonegativity, on average neither is as strong cross‐nationally, or across religious groups, as beliefs about gender. The results show further support for the importance of beliefs about gender as a central ideological system in social and political worldviews.