Determinants of homonegativity in Europe.

The European Parliament recently passed a resolution condemning homophobia in the European Union (European Parliament, 2006). The move was prompted, among other reasons, by a considerable difference in the treatment of homosexuality in the "old" and "new" Europe (European Commission, 2006, p. 42-43). After the accession round on May 1, 2004, when 10 postcommunist countries became the new members of the European Union, new cultural divisions became a part of European reality. Clashes between the EU parliamentarians on the issues of abortion and human stem cell research (Bilefski, 2006; Bowley, 2005) and violent attacks on gay pride participants in Eastern and Southeastern Europe (Anonymous, 2001, 2007a; Levy, 2007) suggested a possibility of a European version of "culture wars." In several Central and Eastern European countries, Poland and Romania being the most notable, but certainly not the sole examples (Anonymous, 2007b; Connolly, 2007; Sheeter, 2006; Turcescu &Stan, 2005), there is a strong political and sociocultural opposition to gay and lesbian rights. In this oppositional bloc one invariably finds the prominent members of the national church and various, often Europhobic, right-wing political groups.

Opposite tendencies, however, should not be overlooked. Recently, in the two former "Eastern-bloc" countries, Slovenia (2005) and the Czech Republic (2006), a law on registered same-sex partnership was passed, while Hungary and Croatia adopted unregistered same-sex cohabitation (in 1996 and 2003, respectively). In the Romanian case, the negotiation process leading to EU accession provided strong pressure on local legislators, resulting in the recent decriminalization of homosexuality in this country (Nachescu, 2005). Still, cross-national surveys suggest that negative attitudes toward homosexuality are more prevalent in the "new" Europe (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Stulhofer & Sandfort, 2005). As recently reported, only one non-Western European country, the Czech Republic, was among the 10 European countries that were most accepting of homosexuality, and it occupied the last place on the list (Halman, Luijkx, & Van Zundert, 2005). In contrast, all 10 least-accepting countries were non-Western European countries. Opposition to gay and lesbian rights was found substantially more present in the Eastern, Southeastern, and to a somewhat lesser extent Central European societies than in the Western ones (European Commission, 2006). While, for example, an overwhelming majority of Dutch citizens (82%) supported homosexual marriage, comparable majorities of participants in Latvia, Greece, and Poland objected to the idea.

Although numerous studies have analyzed sociopsychological correlates or microdeterminants of homophobia, mostly in Western countries (Adam, 1998; Davies, 2004; Herek, 1998; Steffans & Wagner, 2004), we are aware of only two cross-national studies that focused on macro-level correlates of homonegativity (Kelley, 2001; Widmer, Treas, & Newcomb, 1998). According to the authors of the first study, attitudes toward nonmarital sex measured by the International Social Survey Program in 1994 could not be explained by a simple permissive/nonpermissive society dichotomy. Their data on disapproval of homosexual sex, however, showed that on average the public in the old EU15 countries (1) was substantially less homonegative than the public in the new members of the EU. The average proportion of participants believing that same-sex activity between two adults is '"always wrong" was 54% in the first group of countries (n=10) and 68% in the second group (n=5). The average for the whole set of 24 countries was 59%. Among the non-Western European countries, the Czech Republic was found the most, and Hungary the least, permissive (Widmer et al., 1998). The study did not analyze predictors of disapproval of homosexuality.

A more recent research study (Kelley, 2001) reported on predictors of disapproval of homosexuality in a pooled sample of 29 countries participating in the International Social Survey Project 1998-1999. Using a large sample of more than 30,000 participants, Kelley found a number of variables entered in ordinary least squares regression analysis (age, gender, education, religious beliefs, church attendance, gross domestic product [GDP], and state-socialist past) were significant predictors. In addition, all five individual-level predictors were also tested and confirmed separately by country (Kelley, 2001). The study did not attempt to examine institutional effects--the impact of dominant cultural values and institutionalized norms and beliefs--which could be assessed only by a comparative country-level analysis.

In this article we utilize the EVS 1999/2000 dataset to test the theoretically informed hypotheses about the culture-level determinants (Leung, 1989; Mills, van de Bunt, & de Bruijn, 2006; Moors & Wennekers, 2003) of negative attitudes toward homosexuals and homosexuality. We find these attitudes an important marker of social tolerance and therefore significant for the increasingly culturally heterogeneous European Union. The article starts with a brief outline of the three societal sources of homonegativity--tradition, modernization, and postmodernization--and then proceeds to descriptive analysis and multivariate hypotheses testing.

Theoretical Framework

Beginning in the late eleventh century, negative attitudes toward homosexuality in Europe became the norm (Greenberg, 1988; Tannahill, 1996). In the majority of European societies, ensuing increase in hostility and legal repression extended well into the twentieth century. As well documented, the central source of the premodern and early modern scorn and prosecution of homosexual, "against the nature," or sodomitic activities were the theological treatises transposed into a church doctrine (Greenberg, 1988). This process of the church-based social regulation of sexuality, marriage, and reproduction (Flandrin, 1991) was not unique to the Western world. In most traditional societies, religious beliefs and norms shaped social life, particularly sexuality, reproduction, and kinship (Reiss, 1986; Tannahill, 1996).

A gradual change in the social regulation of sexuality occurred with modernization. The great social transformation fueled by processes of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and the development of a modern educational system replaced the traditional authority and its normative framework with the rational-legal authority based on increasingly secular rationalism (Weber, 1997). This new social regulation, as well as the inherent logic of burgeoning capitalism, proved conducive to the expansion of the culture of individualism. In the second half of the twentieth century, the modern transformation of social regulation of sexuality was completed by the revolution of sexual permissiveness (McLaren, 1999). Modernity, it was suggested, ended about the same time. Late modernity or postmodernization followed (Giddens, 1990; Inglehart, 1997), characterized by further expansion, even globalization, of the culture of permissiveness (Halman, 1995). In the process, freedom of sexual choices, including the nonheterosexual ones (embodied, but not exclusively, by sexual minorities), personal autonomy, and the acceptance of diversity became undisputed values of the contemporaneity in the western world (Giddens, 1992; Schmidt, 1998; Weeks, 1995).

This brief overview pointed to three major sources of social regulation of sexuality: religious tradition, the modernization processes, and the contemporary dynamics of postmodernization. Measuring the impact of the three dimensions in their temporal sequence forms the basis of our analysis of macro-determinants of homonegativity.

Impact of Tradition

Christianity played a major historical role in the sociocultural development of European societies, which was recently reflected in the heated political debate over the inclusion of the Christian legacy ("Christian roots of Europe") in the European Constitution (Black, 2004). The impact of this religious legacy, however, is far from uniform. Historical differences among the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Church added a specific component to the North-South and the West-East divide. In the European context, it has been observed that Protestant countries were less sexually restricted than the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ones. For example, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Sweden were the first European countries to promote family planning and school-based sex education (Francoeur & Noonan, 2004).

The religious tradition model stipulates that homonegativity would be affected differentially by historically dominant religious denominations. It should be noted here that our approach focuses on the impact of religious values on everyday culture, including the nonreligious institutions, and not on the religious individuals in national samples. Our model assumes that a religious tradition will influence both religious and nonreligious individuals in a given society through its imprint on local institutions and the cultural meanings they produce.

Impact of Modernization

Modernity has a mixed record on sexual freedom. The nineteenth-century Victorian ideology, early medicalization of sexuality, and hygienic reforms imposed a new system of control and repression of deviant sexuality, which also included "excessive" heterosexuality (Katz, 1995). From the end of the century on, however, Western sexual morals were gradually relaxed due to secularization and decreasing social control in large urban settings. These were the consequences of the influx of liberal values generated by the expanding educational system, rising standard of life (D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988; Greenberg, 1988), and the emerging new culture of individualism (Giddens, 1991; Simmel, 1903/1980). In the interwar period, during the 1920s and 1930s, homosexual communities were common and occasionally socially visible in large European cities (Greenberg, 1988). In the second part of the twentieth century, decriminalization of homosexuality and its subsequent removal from the list of mental illnesses prompted by the emerging gay and lesbian liberation movement marked a new moral climate in the West (Greenberg, 1988; LeVay, 1996). This history is specified in the modernization model, which posits that homonegativity would be diminished by the processes of modernization--mass education, urbanization, and economic growth in particular.

Impact of Postmodernization

In a series of studies, Ronald Inglehart (1990, 1997; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005) proposed that a new global cultural shift began in the second half of the last century. With the postindustrial phase of modernity replacing the old industrial one, values of individual freedom and self-expression started replacing the earlier emphasis on economic achievement and security. The turn brought an "increasing emancipation from both religious and secular-rational authority" (Inglehart, 2006, p. 115; see also Weber, 1997) and a growing importance of quality of life and human rights. Unsurprisingly, this emerging postmaterialist worldview was found significantly associated with the acceptance of homosexuality (Inglehart, 1990) and sexual permissiveness in general (Halman, 1995; Inglehart, 1997). The described dynamics, however, could be affected by immigration flows intensified by globalization (Qingwen, 2007). Growing immigration to the Western postindustrial societies is motivated primarily by economic and security needs (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2006; United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs [UNDESA], 2006). This and the fact that a substantial proportion of immigrants originate from the non-European cultures (some of which are extremely repressive and punitive with regards to same-sex sexual activities) increases cultural heterogeneity in Western European countries.

Referring to these dual dynamics, the postmodernization model postulates that attitudes toward homosexuality would be affected by contemporary post-materialism, as well as by the immigration flow. These two parallel processes, it is expected, would have opposite effects on homonegativity.

Method

Dataset

The EVS is a large-scale, cross-national longitudinal survey initiated as a collaborative international research project in the late 1970s (Halman, 2001). In the analyses presented in this article we use data collected in the third wave (1999/2000), when the survey was carried out in 33 European countries, including Turkey. In total, data from more than 41,000 participants were collected. The size of the national samples varied from more than 900 to 2,000 participants.

In each participating country, the EVS was carried out on a multistage probabilistic sample of participants aged 18 years and older. A uniform procedure, face-to-face interviewing at the participant's home, was used for collecting data. Specific guidelines for the survey were provided by the coordinator, and the national research teams were required to provide detailed information about the translation of the standardized questionnaire, sampling procedures, fieldwork, weighting, national codes, and the inclusion of optional (country-specific) questions. The master questionnaire used in the EVS 1999/2000 wave asked 112 questions (332 variables). In the cases where inconsistencies in procedure were detected, the variables were excluded from the national dataset.

Response rates varied across the countries. (2) With the exception of Spain (25% response rate), the response rate range was 40%-95% (Halman, 2001). The average response rate in the Western European countries was 64% and in the Eastern European countries 67%. In 21 out of 32 national samples, poststratification weighting was applied to improve the accuracy of survey estimates and correct for the nonresponse bias (Little, 1993). The validity and comparability of national survey data were assessed by the EVS coordinating team using a number of procedures including content analysis of item wording (in national languages), outlier analysis, and construct validity assessment.

Instruments

Homonegativity was operationalized through two indicators. The indicator of the social distance toward homosexuals was the percentage of respondents who mentioned homosexuals when asked about groups of people they "would not like to have as neighbors." The second indicator, the justification of homosexuality percentage difference index, was based on the participant's approval of homosexuality. This should be distinguished from attitudes toward homosexual individuals. By homosexuality people usually refer, both cognitively and discursively, to same-sex sexual activity, which is not surprising since partner-specific sexual activity is one of the core dimensions in defining sexual orientation. Participants were asked if homosexuality "can always be justified, never be justified or something in between." A 10-point scale (1=never, 10=always) was used for recording answers. The index was computed by subtracting the percentage of participants for whom homosexuality was "always justified" from the percentage of those for whom it was "never justified." Negative scores thus represent approval of homosexuality. In methodological terms, the simplicity of both indicators tends to minimize the construct equivalence problem (Mills et al., 2006; Moors & Wennekers, 2003). The two indicators of homonegativity were highly correlated (r = .90, p < .01).

Historical religion was measured with three dummy variables (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy), of which Protestantism was assigned the reference category. Data on historical religion were taken from Melton and Baumann (2002). Education was measured as the percentage of college-educated participants in the national samples. Urbanization was operationalized as the percentage of respondents living in cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants. Economic development was assessed with the real GDP per capita (GDP per capita converted into U.S. dollars on the basis of the purchasing power parity exchange rate) in 1999 (International Monetary Fund [IMF], 2000). Following Inglehart (1997), the index of postmaterialism was expressed as the percentage of participants favoring postmaterialist societal goals such as "giving people more say in important government decisions" minus the percentage of participants favoring materialist goals ("maintaining order" and "fighting rising prices"). Immigration was operationalized as the percentage of immigrants in the national population (UNDESA, 2006).

Results

Table 1 provides descriptive data on homonegativity in 32 European societies. (3) As expected, Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands were found to be the least homonegative, or the most approving societies. On the other end of the scale were Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus as the most homonegative societies among those surveyed in 1999. A religious dimension of the divide can hardly be overlooked: all four of the least homonegative countries were predominantly Protestant, while four out of five of the least accepting countries were Eastern Orthodox.

The range of homonegativity in Europe is more evident in Figure 1. In comparison to the old EU countries (the EU-15), participants from the countries that recently joined the EU and the non-EU countries (with the exception of Iceland) were found to be more homonegative. Three dusters of countries are clearly noticeable. The first and the least homonegative cluster included the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, with the exception of Finland. The second duster consisted of the old EU countries and the traditionally permissive Czech Republic (Widmer et al., 1998). The third and the most homonegative cluster is made up of the recent EU members and the non-EU countries. With the exception of Malta, this cluster represented Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European societies. Interestingly, two Central European countries, Slovenia and Slovakia, were positioned somewhere in between the second and the third cluster. Both societies were characterized by a relatively low disapproval of homosexuality and a relatively high social distance toward homosexuals.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

To analyze macro or societal predictors of homonegativity, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were carried out with the indicators of homonegativity as dependent variables. The regression models were built in three steps. Historical religion was entered in the first step, indicators of modernization were added in the second step, and, in the final step, indicators of postmodernization were entered in the model. The results are summarized in Table 2.

In the case of social distance toward homosexuals, we found evidence of a significant impact of all three hypothesized dimensions. Although Eastern Orthodoxy remained a positive predictor in all three steps, suggesting a persisting effect of tradition, adding the indicators of modernization--particularly urbanization and real GDP per capita--more than doubled the percentage of explained variance (from 34% to 79%) of the dependent variable. As hypothesized, the effects of modernization were negative: the higher the levels of urbanization and economic development, the lower the proportion of the national population objecting to having a homosexual neighbor. Adding the indicators of postmodernization improved the predictability of social distance toward homosexuals only slightly. Of the two postmodernization indicators, only immigration was found significantly and positively associated with the dependent variable. The more prevalent immigration, the more social distance reported.

Religious tradition was not found to be a significant determinant of the country-level disapproval of homosexuality. (4) Although initially relevant, Eastern Orthodoxy lost statistical significance after the modernization indicators were entered in the model. The latter substantially improved the predictability of the disapproval of homosexual activity. As in the case of social distance toward homosexual persons, adding the postmodernization variables resulted in a marginal increase of the percentage of explained variance. In the final step, both economic development and urbanization remained significant, while immigration--the indicator that significantly predicted social distance toward homosexuals--was found bordering on statistical significance (p < .058). Considering the sample size (n = 32), the effect of immigration should be taken into consideration.

Since 15 of the 32 surveyed countries had a state-socialist past, we also tested for possible effects of socialism (not presented here). Similar to what appeared in an earlier report (Kelley, 2001), this dummy variable was found to be a significant predictor of social distance toward homosexuals, but only after GDP was omitted from the regression model. (5) Serious collinearity concerns governed the removal of the socialism dummy from final analyses. Rerunning the analyses without it did not affect the significance of other independent variables.

Discussion

Confirming a recent observation from the Eurobarometer study (European Commission, 2006), our analysis revealed substantial differences in the degree of homonegativity in Europe. In comparison to the old EU member countries, the new EU member states expressed more strong homonegativity. Clearly, there are a number of sociocultural differences between the two groups of countries, some of which were recently highlighted as a major cause of concern for the future of the EU (Fuchs & Klingemann, 2002). The old EU members are economically more developed and more politically stable, and are characterized by better functioning democratic institutions and more efficient legal systems (Mishler & Rose, 1997; Rose-Ackerman, 2001). As recently shown, the new EU members differ significantly from the old EU members in generalized trust, involvement in civic organizations, and confidence in institutions (Rimac & Stulhofer, 2004).

Differences in homonegativity were also observed within the old EU group. Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands were found to be the most accepting of homosexuality, and the Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Italy, and Greece) and Ireland the least accepting. These differences reflect a tradition of sexual permissiveness, openness, and tolerance in the Nordic countries (Weinberg, Lottes, & Shower, 1995), but could have also been affected by a differential religious emphasis on sexuality issues, especially same-sex marriage. In contrast to a more subdued approach exercised by the Protestant Church, the Roman Catholic Church pursues a vigorous and high-profile battle against the legalization of nonheterosexual marriage. Consequently, homonegativity in the Roman Catholic countries may have been strengthened by the Vatican's opposition to the changing of the marital law, as well as queer manifestations like gay pride marches.

Among the new members of the EU and the other postcommunist countries, the Eastern Orthodox countries were found higher in homonegativity than the Roman Catholic countries. A similar finding was reported by Inglehart and Welzel (2005), who used the World Values Survey database. In comparison to the Protestant and Catholic religions, we found Eastern Orthodoxy to increase the prevalence of social distance toward homosexuals, regardless of the level of modernization. Interestingly, an earlier study found the Orthodox religious heritage negatively associated with values of self-expression and attitudes toward abortion and childrearing, even after controlling for economic development and social structure (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). One possible explanation points to the demise of state socialism and the resulting desecularization (Borowik, 2006; Inglehart & Baker, 2000; Stulhofer & Sandfort, 2005). If modernization and tradition are mutually restrictive, the extent and intensity of desecularization will depend on the speed and success of postcommunist transition. In comparison to the postcommunist Central European countries, mostly Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox societies in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe experienced a more socially destructive and delayed transition, both in political and socioeconomic terms (Borowik, 2006; United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 1998). Sociopsychological costs of transitional anomie and pauperization, according to Borowik (2006), revived Orthodoxy by reshaping it into a tool for rebuilding personal and collective identity in a rapidly changing social environment.

Unexpectedly, postmaterialist values did not improve empirical understanding of homonegativity. It was expected that well-documented intergenerational rise of postmaterialist values (Inglehart, 1990, 1997) would independently decrease homonegativity, as suggested by Inglehart and Welzel (2005). The lack of predictive power of this global cultural shift, however, should not be completely surprising. The rise of postmaterialistic values, as argued by Inglehart (1990; 1997), is a consequence of growing up with material security created by economic development and prosperity. Hence, the effect of postmaterialism would be subsumed by the effect of economic development. (6) In addition, postmodernization is commonly conceptualized not as a radical departure from but rather a (more reflexive and skeptical of authority) continuation of modernization (Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994; Giddens, 1991; Inglehart, 1997).

Finally, several study limitations should be mentioned. Although response rates varied among the countries included in the EVS 1999/2000 (Halman, 2001), a systematic nonresponse analysis was not attempted. A number of procedures, however, were employed to minimize biases and increase precision and validity. In addition to poststratification that was applied to reduce the risk of systematic bias, the comparability of national survey data was carefully assessed. This resulted in the removal of all the variables that were found unfit for cross-national analysis.

Another limitation is related to some of the indicators used in our study. For example, it is not clear whether the justification of homosexuality percentage difference index measures the (dis)approval of same-sex sexual activities or the (dis)approval of homosexual activities and homosexual identity. This imprecision was unavoidable since the EVS questionnaire did not define "homosexuality." Methodological difficulties were also present in measuring participants' education. The indicator used (percentage of college educated individuals) is clearly insensitive to the quality of, and the dominant values embedded in, different national systems of higher education. In addition, education was not uniformly recorded. Several country reports contained nation-specific categories, which were later recoded into a standardized, one-size-fits-all scale.

Conclusion and Implications

The analysis of societal predictors of homonegativity presented in this article demonstrated the central role of modernization processes in increasing social acceptance of homosexuality in contemporary European societies. Economic development and the process of urbanization significantly increase social tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality. Less expectedly, our findings pointed out that persisting religious tradition and immigration flows may limit the effects of modernization. The findings have ramifications for future EU enlargement and inform present debates about human rights protection, religious values, and European identity (Bilefski, 2006; Black, 2004; Bowley, 2005).

The effect of immigration seems to be of particular importance. The cultural impact of immigration has recently become a topic of heated debates, primarily because of concerns over the alleged radicalization of young Muslim immigrants, which was attributed to failed integration. In a different vein, a recent Dutch proposal aimed at dealing with the increasing cultural heterogeneity that was perceived as endangering the liberal foundations of the Dutch cultural system (Crouch, 2006), emphasized the need to address cultural tensions associated with immigration. Although initially controversial, the movie ("To the Netherlands") that was made a part of the entrance examination for prospective immigrants intended to familiarize the applicants with Dutch values (among others, the movie contained a scene of two men kissing). Our study does not only suggest that immigrant subcultures could be more sexually restrictive than the host culture, but also that the existing national curricula in Europe may not be as efficient in promoting social tolerance as is commonly believed. In addition, it would be a mistake to assume that economic development will necessarily create moral convergence and a universal respect of human rights. A more proactive approach, as recently exercised by the European Parliament (2006), seems timely and much needed.

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Aleksander Stulhofer

Department of Sociology, University of Zagreb

Ivan Rimac

Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Aleksander Stulhofer, University of Zagreb, Department of Sociology, Lucica 3, Zagreb 10000, Croatia. E-mail: [e-mail]

(1) EU15 refers to the EU composition before the May l, 2004, accession of 10 new member states, of which eight were formerly socialist countries.

(2) Response rates for nine countries were not reported (Halman, 2001).

(3) As the only predominantly Muslim country in the EVS 1999/2000 dataset, Turkey was excluded from analyses.

(4) To explore a possible relationship between fundamentalist religious beliefs and homonegativity, we tested the association between each of the two indicators of homonegativity and a crude indicator of the acceptance of religious fundamentalism ("Politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for public office"; 1 = "agree strongly" to 5="disagree strongly"). Correlation coefficients obtained in the pooled sample were significant (p < .01) and pointed in the expected direction. The acceptance of fundamentalist beliefs increased the likelihood of social distancing toward homosexuals ([r.sub.pb] = -.14) and disapproval of homosexuality ([r.sub.s] = -.20).

(5) Zero-order correlation between real GDP and socialism was - .82, indicating collinearity. References

(6) Moderately high zero-order correlation (.70) between real GDP per capita and index of postmaterialism seemed to confirm Inglehart's "scarcity hypothesis" (Inglehart, 1990, 1997; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005).

Table 1. Percentage of Participants Expressing Negative
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality in 32 European Societies
(1999/2000)
                            Indicator A              Indicator B

                          Would not like to      Can homosexuality
                           have homosexual         be justified:
                            neighbor (%)      "never"--"always" (a) (%)

France                           15.6                     6.4
The United Kingdom               24.3                    10.4
Germany                          13.1                    -4.2
Austria                          25.4                     2.3
Italy                            28.7                    15.6
Spain                            16.4                    -0.5
Portugal                         25.2                    40.0
The Netherlands                   6.2                   -40.6
Belgium                          17.4                     6.9
Luxemburg                        18.6                    -5.9
Denmark                           8.1                   -21.0
Sweden                            6.1                   -41.9
Finland                          21.3                    11.0
Iceland                           7.9                   -30.6
Northern Ireland                 35.2                    30.7
Republic of Ireland              26.9                    23.5
Estonia                          46.2                    51.1
Latvia                           45.5                    75.0
Lithuania                        67.6                    76.6
Poland                           55.2                    53.2
Czech R.                         19.7                     3.5
Slovakia                         44.0                    11.9
Hungary (b)                       --                     86.4
Romania                          65.2                    77.7
Bulgaria                         53.9                    56.7
Croatia                          52.8                    64.5
Slovenia                         44.3                    20.7
Greece                           26.8                    12.9
Malta                            39.6                    58.1
Russia                           57.9                    68.4
Ukraine                          65.7                    68.0
Belarus                          63.3                    52.5

(a) The percentage of respondents who believe that homosexuality can
never be justified minus the percentage of respondents who believe that
homosexuality can always be justified.

(b) Hungarian data on social distance was removed from the EVS dataset
due to a nonstandard interviewing procedure applied.

Table 2. Predictors of Homonegativity in Europe

                              Model I Religious tradition

                                  A                   B
                                         Beta (t)
Traditional religion
  Protestant (ref.)
  Catholic                  .31 (1.82)          .37 (2.03)
  Orthodox                  .70 (4.15) **       .56 (3.04) **
Education
Urbanization
GDP
Postmaterialism
Immigration
  [R.sup.2] adjusted        .34                 .20

                                 Model II Modernization

                                  A                   B
                                         Beta (t)
Traditional religion
  Protestant (ref.)
  Catholic                  .02 (.20)           .09 (.67)
  Orthodox                  .41 (3.37) **       .25 (1.59)
Education                  -.16 (-1.56)        -.17 (-1.34)
Urbanization               -.36 (-3.39) **     -.28 (-2.13) *
GDP                        -.62 (-5.60) **     -.64 (-4.52) **
Postmaterialism
Immigration
  [R.sup.2] adjusted        .79                 .64

                              Model III Postmodernization

                                  A                   B
                                        Beta (t)
Traditional religion
  Protestant (ref.)
  Catholic                  .00 (.04)           .11
  Orthodox                  .37 (3.20) **       .13
Education                  -.16 (-1.68)        -.10 (-.74)
Urbanization               -.38 (-4.01) **     -.26 (-2.10) *
GDP                        -.78 (-6.10) **     -.66 (-3.87) **
Postmaterialism            -.02 (-.19)         -.25 (-1.51)
Immigration                 .27 (3.11) **       .23 (2.00)
  [R.sup.2] adjusted        .84                 .70

A = proportion of respondents who would not like to have a homosexual
neighbor; B = the percentage of respondents who believe that
homosexuality can never be justified minus the percentage of
respondents who believe that homosexuality can always be justified.

* p < .05, ** p < .01.