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This study explores institutional homophobia as instantiated by an order of discourse that governs the textualization of homophobic representations. I examine how a U.S.-based, conservative Christian organization deploys an order of discourse that, through a logic of deviancy, enables homophobic formation to unfold. Text-making strategies include hybridizing generic features derived from social science writing generally and deviancy studies particularly, allowing institutional writers to claim scientific legitimacy for their antigay representations. Stylistically, lexical choice promotes an objective tone, while assertion and modalization buttress antigay representations. Discursive strategies include calculated ascriptions and denials of gay/lesbian agency, and the harnessing of hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy to create a taxonomy of deviancies reinforcing antigay evaluations while avoiding overt homophobic references. My findings suggest that the institution’s order of discourse enables homophobic understandings that appear grounded in scientific truth. These institutional practices are motivated by a desire to naturalize governance claims as part of a broader hegemonic struggle over the definition of the good (sexual) citizen and the political direction of the United States.

In this article, I examine the relationship between homophobic language use and its broader social context, focusing on how a U.S.-based, conservative Christian organization's institutionalized homophobic text-making practices seek to derive legitimacy from the broader political economic discourses associated with the neoliberal moment. Using the Family Research Council's statement on marriage and the family as the basis for analysis, I demonstrate how the organization seeks to represent lesbian and gay subjects and their kinship formations as a threat to human capital development because they are based on affectional relationships that neither reflect nor respond to the kinds of self-governance and marketization that neoliberalism requires of all citizen-subjects and their families. Linguistic strategies for creating such representations include lexical choices that avoid overtly identifying lesbian and gay subjects as the object of discussion, the creation of a taxonomy for what constitutes "proper" families-based on neoliberal principles--that implicitly excludes lesbian and gay kinship formations, and the use of neoliberal discourses of self-governance and marketization as the basis for that exclusion.

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