Enough is Enough! Civil Unions, Religious Prejudice, and the Limits of Secular Tolerance

Authors

  • Mike Mawson Victoria University of Wellington

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/arsr.2006.19.1.53

Keywords:

secular space, St. Augustine, religion and politics

Abstract

This article delineates the broad philosophical/theological legacy that structures the contemporary impasse between conservative religious morality and secular liberal tolerance. In the first part of the article, I will trace how, through a series of innovations stretching from Augustine to Locke, secular space emerged as autonomous and demarcated from religion, and how, concomitantly, religion became understood as ‘personal conviction’ or ‘private belief’. In the second part, I will take the case study of the 2004 civil unions protests in New Zealand. Using this case study I will argue that this broader ontological legacy (or the inherited way of understanding religion, secular space, and their relation) structures the conflict between religious conservatives and secular liberals so as to prevent these two positions from engaging or recognis¬ing each other. Finally, I shall propose a solution of sorts by looking at what a more Augustinian understanding of religion and politics might allow.

Author Biography

  • Mike Mawson, Victoria University of Wellington
    Michael Mawson is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. He has a BA Hons and MA in Religious Studies from Victoria. His current research interest is in the relationship between religion and politics in Western democracies. His PhD is looking at religious morality, and the ways religious adherents define and articulate themselves within secular public space. Publications include Process: The Origins of Brooke Kingship in Sarawak (2002).

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Published

2006-02-24

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Mawson, M. (2006). Enough is Enough! Civil Unions, Religious Prejudice, and the Limits of Secular Tolerance. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 19(1), 53-74. https://doi.org/10.1558/arsr.2006.19.1.53