CHAPTER 23 Homonationalism and the Challenge of Queer Theology Si ˆ an Melvill Hawthorne Lecturer in Critical Theory and the Study of Religions, Department of Religions and Philosophies SOAS University of London, United Kingdom Ulrike E. Auga Professor, Cultural Theory, Gender and Religious Studies Humboldt University of Berlin This chapter examines the incorporation of LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, intersex, and queer) subjectivities into nationalist imaginaries in the aftermath of President George W. Bush’s declaration of a ‘‘war on terror’’ in 2001, and the subsequent complicity of queer politics in Islamophobia. Queer studies scholar and political theorist Jasbir K. Puar (1967–) calls this incorporation ‘‘homonationalism,’’ defining it as ‘‘the dual movement in which certain homosexual constituencies have embraced U.S. nationalist agendas and have also been embraced by nationalist agendas’’ (2007, xxiv). Homonationalism enables the presentation of Western liberal democracies as exceptionally tolerant on the basis of their enfranchisement of lesbian and gay citizens, in contrast to the allegedly brutal and barbaric homophobia of Islamic countries, a representation that justifies racist, anti-Arab, and Islam- ophobic policies. The incorporation of LGBTIQ subjects into heteronormative domestic institutions in liberal states via various forms of enfranchisement is what cultural and social historian Lisa Duggan terms the ‘‘new homonormative’’ (2002) and what professor of English and Asian American studies David L. Eng calls ‘‘queer liberalism’’ (2007). Both terms signal the inclusion of queer individuals in concepts of normative citizenship, which, while extending the benefits and rights of heteronormative identity and social practices to gay and lesbian citizens, also sets the regulatory terms (requiring conformity to heterosexual norms) in which they are able to acquire these rights. The term heteronormativity refers to the assumption that heterosexuality is the ‘‘normal’’ form of desire/sexual orientation, which permits marital relations and reproductive kinship only between people of opposite sexes. The relatively recent extension of rights to marriage, for example, to LGBTIQ couples is thus arguably predicated on the extent to which these citizens conform to or mirror the patterns and requirements of heteronormativity and its models of domestic sociality and sexual norms. This chapter offers a consideration of the ways in which heteronormative ideologies are aligned with the nationalist secular liberal policies of the nation-state and examines the intersection of these ideologies and policies with race, religiosity, and sexuality. The first section of the chapter provides an overview of scholarly debates that address the centrality of 367 COPYRIGHT 2017 Macmillan Reference USA, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning WCN 02-200-210