The support for far-right parties appears to be showing no signs of slowing down despite a couple of setbacks like Biden and Macron’s victory in their Presidential elections against firmly right-wing opponents; Marine Le Pen remains close to Macron in 2022 French Presential polling; the far-right Swedish Democrats were at one point first in the Riksdag polling; and, despite losing seats in the previous Dutch parliamentary elections, the PVV remain the third-largest party in the Netherlands. If we were to cross-examine these parties with the far-right of old, we would find some interesting differences, one of which being the positions of these parties on LGBTQ rights. The parties I have mentioned have appeared to have changed their position on how society should see LGBTQ individuals thus appearing to abandon the homophobia of their past. This dissertation will offer a content and discourse analysis to study this phenomenon further, including looking at the differentials of the far-right’s position on LGBTQ rights over time and across parties. The far-right’s relationship with LGBTQ rights is a complex one, as I will show in my findings, and societal and cultural contexts both influence and shapes how the far-right approach LGBTQ politics. I will argue here that although the far-right share similarities in how they have approached LGBTQ politics, a common element being the fusion of Islamophobia with LGBTQ rights rhetoric, they are clear differences in this rhetoric that are shaped by cultural and societal conditions.
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