Both religion and the county’s Soviet past contribute to Homophobia in Georgia

Note: This article first appeared on the Caucasus Data Blog, a joint effort of CRRC Georgia and OC Media. It was written by Giorgi Babunashvili, a senior researcher at CRRC-Georgia and Anano Kipiani, a policy analyst at CRRC-Georgia. The views presented in the article are of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia, or any related entity. This article is based on a paper, which was published in the International Journal of Sociology.

People’s values and attitudes are shaped by many factors, religion and historical experience being important among them. 

A paper we recently published in the International Journal of Sociology suggests that Georgia’s communist past is associated with higher degrees of homophobia just as religiosity is. 

However, the experience of a communist past also moderates the impact of religiosity on homophobia. In post-Communist countries, an individual’s religiosity has a weaker effect on liberal attitudes toward same-sex relations than it has in countries with no communist government in their historical experience. 

To show this, we used data collected between 2017 and 2020 in 17 countries through the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The countries were selected to ensure that different religious denominations were present that both had and did not have a communist past. 

Under communism, same-sex relations were either illegal or treated as a psychological disorder. This may explain why post-communist societies are less tolerant towards same-sex relations. In the post-communist countries in the sample, 44% of people perceive sexual relations between two adults of the same sex as always wrong, in contrast to 15% in their non-post-communist counterparts.

Organised religion is often the dominant force against queer rights globally. A regression analysis shows that religiosity is an important factor affecting homophobic sentiments: a higher religiosity level is associated with lower tolerance of queer people.

Another important factor affecting tolerance towards queer people is society’s historical experience: individuals in post-communist countries are 0.6 points less tolerant on a four-point homosexuality-tolerance scale, compared to their counterparts in non-communist countries.

The effect of religiosity on homophobia is weaker in post-communist countries, where the difference in tolerance towards same-sex relations between the most and the least religious individuals is smaller compared to the similar difference in non-post-communist countries.  

Thus, religiosity appears to encourage homophobia. So too does a communist past. While religiosity also drives homophobia in post-communist countries, it does so to a lesser extent. This appears to stem, in part, from people in post-communist countries being more homophobic across the spectrum of religiosity. 

Georgia may be the most homophobic country in Europe

[This article first appeared on the Caucasus Data Blog, a joint production of CRRC Georgia and OC Media. It was written by Dustin Gilbreath, Deputy Research Director at CRRC Georgia, and Giorgi Babunashvili, a Senior Researcher at CRRC Georgia. The views presented in the article reflect the views of the authors' alone and not the views of CRRC Georgia or any related entity.]

Survey data suggests that Georgia may be the most homophobic country in Europe.

Recent events in Georgia have once again highlighted the extent of homophobia in Georgia, and survey data suggests that the country may be the most homophobic on the continent.

On 5 July, a homophobic riot took place in Tbilisi. While the riot is a tragedy, it also reflects the fact that Georgia is the most homophobic in Europe for which data is available on the International Social Survey programme (ISSP) survey. 

Given the participation of priests in the riot, one might expect more religious people to be more homophobic. However, the data suggests that homophobia is prevalent throughout society and how important religion is in someone’s life is not correlated with homophobic attitudes. 

The ISSP survey asked respondents in 33 countries, mainly in Europe, whether sexual relations between two adults of the same sex are always wrong. In Georgia, 84% said it was always wrong, compared with an average of only 37% among all countries. 

The next closest country on the survey was Turkey, with 80% of the public there reporting that same-sex sexual relations were always wrong. By comparison, only 69% of Russians reported the same. In Hungary, which the European Union is currently suing for passing homophobic legislation, roughly half as many (45%) people said it was always wrong. Neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan were not part of the survey.

The data also varies by age and sex. Young people tended to be less homophobic than older people and women tended to be more homophobic than men, with the exception of men and women in the 35–54 age range, who were equally homophobic. 

In the most recent riots, priests played an active role. This too is perhaps unsurprising given that priests also engaged in violence in the 2013 International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia homophobic riots. Further, the church established the ‘Day of Family Purity’ in the years following the 2013 riots to prevent events marking International Day Against Homophobia from being held. 

In this regard, the data tends to suggest that Orthodox Christian countries are more homophobic than others. The only exception to this pattern was that the one Muslim country in the dataset, Turkey, was more homophobic than Orthodox countries on average. 

While Orthodox countries appeared to be more homophobic overall than countries where other religions predominate, how strongly someone evaluates the importance of religion in their lives was not correlated with whether or not they hold a homophobic view. This suggests that religious belief is not necessarily the issue, rather, that generalised homophobia in society is.

The riots witnessed on 5 July show Georgia has a problem with homophobia, to put it lightly. The data suggests that it is among the worst in Europe. While the church instigated violence, individual religiosity does not appear to be the culprit in whether or not someone is homophobic. 

The data used in this article are available here.

How widespread is homophobia in Georgia?

[Note: This piece was co-published with OC Media. This article was written by Dustin Gilbreath, Deputy Research Director at CRRC Georgia. The views presented in this article do not represent the views of UN Women, CRRC Georgia, or any related entity.]

Homophobia is widespread in Georgia. The homophobic riots that occurred on the International Day against Homophobia in 2013 and the bedlam that took place surrounding the planning of the 2019 Pride Parade exemplify this.

The 2019 Caucasus Barometer survey asked two questions proxying homophobia. The first asked whether or not people would approve of someone like them doing business with a homosexual. The second asked people to name the group that they would least like to have as neighbours from a list of different groups, including homosexuals, criminals, people following a different religion, people with different political views, Europeans or Asians who come to live in Georgia and want to stay, and drug addicts.

Nearly nine in ten people (87%) would disapprove of a person like them doing business with a homosexual. By comparison 24% of the public reports they would least like a homosexual as a neighbour among the groups asked about.

Aside from asking about doing business with homosexuals, the survey asked the same question about 18 ethnic and religious groups. More people approved of doing business with every other group asked about on the survey. Indeed, the only other group that people are remotely as negative about are Jehovah’s Witnesses who 81% of people disapprove of people like them doing business with.

A majority of the public approves of people of their ethnicity doing business with all the other groups asked about on the survey.  The average share of people that approve of groups aside from homosexuals is 65%.

The above data lead to the question of who is more or less likely to be tolerant towards homosexuals? The data suggest that people in Tbilisi, ethnic Georgians, those with more education, women, people in wealthier households, and younger people are all more likely to approve of someone like them doing business with a homosexual.

There is not a significant difference between people who are employed or not or use the internet more or less often. The charts below show the differences controlling for these factors.



The question about neighbours shows a slightly different picture. On this question, there are significant differences between ethnic minorities and ethnic Georgians, men and women, and between settlement types.

People outside Tbilisi are seven percentage points more likely to name homosexuals as the group they would least like to have as neighbours. Ethnic minorities are 12 percentage points less likely to name homosexuals than ethnic Georgians. Women are 11 percentage points less likely to name homosexuals than men. The remaining variables tested showed no significant differences.

The above shows that homophobia is relatively widespread in Georgia. Men are more likely to be homophobic than women. So are ethnic minorities more than ethnic Georgians. Younger people, those with more education, and wealthier people express homophobic attitudes less often though still frequently.

The data used for the analysis presented in the article is available here. Replication code for the data analysis is available here.

The data analysis presented in this article made use of a logistic regression. The outcome variables were whether or not an individual approved of someone like them doing business with a homosexual and whether or not they named homosexuals as their least desired neighbour. The independent variables included sex (male or female), age, settlement type (capital, other urban, and rural), employment status (working or not), years in formal education, ethnicity (minority or not), internet usage (daily user or not), and wealth proxied by the number of assets a family-owned from a list of 10 possible assets.

Five data points about homophobia in Georgia five years after the IDAHOT riot

Five years ago, on May 17, 2013 a homophobic riot took place in Tbilisi in response to a small LGBTQ rights demonstration on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. Thousands of protestors, including frocked priests, chased the demonstrators through the streets of Tbilisi as police struggled (some say facilely) to protect the demonstrators from violence. In the time since, LGBTQ rights have remained on the agenda in Georgia, with an anti-discrimination law passed in 2014, which gives some protection to LGBTQ people, and the first openly homosexual candidate running for office in the 2017 local elections. Despite this progress, homophobic and transphobic violence still occurs in the country (for example, see here, here, and here). Five years after the events of May 17, 2013, this article presents five findings from CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey about homophobia in Georgia.

1. Would people rather live next to a criminal, a drug addict, or a homosexual? On Caucasus Barometer 2017, CRRC asked which group people would least like as neighbors.  About one in four said they would least like criminals as neighbors (27%) and another quarter would least like to live by drug users (22%). A similar share (23%) reported they would least like to have homosexuals as neighbors. Taking into account survey error, these three shares are statistically indistinguishable. The latter answer serves as a proxy for homophobia.

2. While religiosity might be thought to be tied to homophobic attitudes, it does not appear that those who report fasting or attending religious services regularly are any more homophobic than those who do not. Importantly, though, of the many possible measures of religiosity, only two were measured on CB 2017. Hence, the results are suggestive rather than definitive.
 


Note: Those who reported having no religious affiliation, answered “Don’t know” or refused to answer what their religion was, were not asked the question about frequency of fasting or religious service attendance. For the question about frequency of attending religious services, original answer options “Every day”, “More than once a week” and “Once a week” were combined into the category “At least once a week” on the chart above, and options “At least once a month”, “Only on special religious holidays”, “Less often”, and “Never” were combined into the category “Less often or never”. For the question about frequency of fasting, original answer options “Often” and “Always” were combined into the category “Often or Always”. Answer options “Sometimes fast”, “Rarely fast”, and “Never fast” were combined into the category “Less often or never”. Those who reported that fasting was not required in their religion were not included in the analysis, as well as those who answered “Don’t know” or refused to answer the questions about the frequency of attending religious services or fasting. 

3. The young are more likely to be homophobic than the elderly, at least on the measure of homophobia used here. While an 18 year old has a 29% chance of reporting that they would least like a homosexual as a neighbor, an 85 year old has only a 16% chance, when controlling for gender; settlement type; level of education; religion; frequency of fasting and attending religious services; whether a child lives in the same household; and household well-being, measured by the number of durables a household owns.




4. Men are more likely to be homophobic than women. When controlling for the variables mentioned above, men have a 26% chance of responding that they would least like homosexuals as neighbors compared with a 17% chance for women.

5. While Georgia has had highly-publicized, homophobic incidents, the level of homophobia is not unique to the country. The same question was asked on Caucasus Barometer 2017 in Armenia, and the results are similar: 21% of Armenians report they would least like homosexuals as neighbors, 27% drug addicts, and 21% criminals.

A more comprehensive measure of homophobia would, of course, provide a better understanding of the issue. The CB question discussed in this blog post only helps to identify people who are extremely homophobic, to the point that they would least like to live next to a homosexual, rather than a criminal. This may suggest that homophobic attitudes are more wide spread in the country.

To explore the data used above, click here. To view the replication code for the analysis used in this article, click here.