Sex abuse happens in all communities, but American minority religions often face disproportionate allegations of sexual abuse. Why, in a country that consistently fails to acknowledge—much less address—the sexual abuse of women and children, do American religious outsiders so often face allegations of sexual misconduct? Why does the American public presume to know “what’s really going on” in minority religious communities? Why are sex abuse allegations such an effective way to discredit people on America’s religious margins? What makes Americans so willing, so eager to identify religion as the cause of sex abuse? Abusing Religion argues that sex abuse in minority religious communities is an American problem, not (merely) a religious one.
Contents
Introduction: Contraceptive Nationalism
1 America’s Contraceptive Mentality: Catholic Co-belligerence and the New Christian Right
Part I Sex, Abuse, and the Satanic Panic
2 Satan Sellers: Michelle Remembers and the Making of a Sex Abuse Panic
3 Believe the Children? Catholicizing Public Morality
Part II Sex, Abuse, and American Islamophobia
4 Dark Religion for Dark People: Race, American Islam, and Not Without My Daughter
5 The War at Home: Muslim Masculinity as Domestic Violence
Part III Sex, Abuse, and Mormon Fundamentalism
6 From Short Creek to Zion: Mormons, Polygyny, and Under the Banner of Heaven
7 This Is Not About Religion: Raiding Zion to Save It
Conclusion: Sex, Abuse, and American Religion
Epilogue: Religion Trains Us Like Roses
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
