AbstractReligious affiliation and participation are thought to work as mobilizing structures through which religious participants accrue organizational and psychological resources, which augment political participation. Given the rejection of homosexuality by many denominations, do religious LGBT people actually accrue more positive psychological resources, and are the positive effects of religiosity on political participation mitigated when belief conflicts with identity? Informed by resource mobilization theory, the identity-threat model of stigmatization, and an intersectional approach, I conduct secondary analyses of two survey data sets of LGBT people. The results suggest that religiosity is associated with increased political participation among LGBT people; however, religious LGBT people exhibit weaker psychological association with the LGBT community and are "out" to fewer people. Furthermore, political participation is less likely among those who experience conflict between their religion and sexuality and among Evangelical Christians.
AbstractSocial group conflict along regional, ethnic, linguistic, and religious cleavages is deeply embedded in the Canadian historical experience. Contemporary analyses, however, have deprecated the role of religion and religiosity in shaping Canadians' political attitudes. This analysis demonstrates that religion and religiosity are significant correlates of Canadian attitudes on moral issues, paralleling the pattern observed in the United States. It demonstrates that the religious cleavage has been a salient feature of Canadian politics for some time and considers whether the contemporary moral divide could serve as a portent of cultural-religious conflict in Canada if a "political entrepreneur" articulated an issue agenda linked to these religion-based differences.
In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt examines the moral grounds that people intuitively believe. He presented his idea by asking why good people are divided by politics and religion. Then, he asked about morality by asking, "Where does morality come from?" (Haidt, 2012, p. 3). He explained that people understand social morality in different ways. People live in unique societies that shape their understanding of social norms, which are based on many factors, such as culture, religion, and education. Haidt based his ideas about the righteous mind on three principles and demonstrated them through three metaphors to help his readers understand his theory. The first principle is "intuitions come first," and its central metaphor is that the mind is like a rider on an elephant, where the rider's job is to serve the elephant. The second principle is "there is more to morality than harm and fairness," and its central metaphor is that the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors. The third principle is "morality binds and blinds," and its metaphor is that we are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee (Pp. 3, 109, 217).
Following the American Revolution, the social foundation supporting a settled ministry and sustaining the Old World tradition of an established state church began to crumble, prompting Alexis de Tocqueville to observe that in the United States, "the ideas of Christianity and liberty are so completely intermingled that it is almost impossible to conceive of the one without the other." Large numbers of ordinary Americans who had internalized egalitarian, anti-aristocratic attitudes while advancing the patriot cause began to search for and find spiritual meaning in evangelical forms of religious expression. Indeed, the revivals sweeping the northern and western states between the American Revolution and the Civil War have been described as "the Revolution at work in religion."
En la sociedad contemporánea, la unión entre guerra y religión ocurrió, a grosso modo, a través de la consagración de una identidad étnica, por un proceso verificable de construcción social de una identidad colectiva dada. Los grupos humanos (pueblos, naciones, minorías, tribus, movimientos religiosos, etc. y sus líderes o "empresarios" políticos) tienden a movilizar los siguientes recursos simbólicos: a) la escritura sagrada de la memoria colectiva; b) la transformación de un territorio dado – en el cual el grupo afirma poseer sus orígenes históricos – en un Territorio Sagrado; c) la identificación de un Enemigo, al mismo tiempo real y simbólico, visto y emotivamente experienciado como la Antítesis, lo Demoníaco, responsable por todos los males y frustraciones que afligen al grupo social. Así definida, la identidad étnica toma la apariencia de lo Puro contra lo Impuro. De esta manera, la idea de recurrir a la violencia sagrada es legitimada. Las religiones van a la guerra cuando se dan las circunstancias históricas apropiadas: cuando se conjugan etnos y ambiciones políticas. Sin esta última – sin la autonomía de la política – el resurgimiento de las guerras religiosas y el compromiso de las religiones en las guerras contemporáneas no puede ser explicado. ; En la sociedad contemporánea, la unión entre guerra y religión ocurrió, a grosso modo, a través de la consagración de una identidad étnica, por un proceso verificable de construcción social de una identidad colectiva dada. Los grupos humanos (pueblos, naciones, minorías, tribus, movimientos religiosos, etc. y sus líderes o "empresarios" políticos) tienden a movilizar los siguientes recursos simbólicos: a) la escritura sagrada de la memoria colectiva; b) la transformación de un territorio dado – en el cual el grupo afirma poseer sus orígenes históricos – en un Territorio Sagrado; c) la identificación de un Enemigo, al mismo tiempo real y simbólico, visto y emotivamente experienciado como la Antítesis, lo Demoníaco, responsable por todos los males y frustraciones que afligen al grupo social. Así definida, la identidad étnica toma la apariencia de lo Puro contra lo Impuro. De esta manera, la idea de recurrir a la violencia sagrada es legitimada. Las religiones van a la guerra cuando se dan las circunstancias históricas apropiadas: cuando se conjugan etnos y ambiciones políticas. Sin esta última – sin la autonomía de la política – el resurgimiento de las guerras religiosas y el compromiso de las religiones en las guerras contemporáneas no puede ser explicado. ; The connection between war and religion in contemporary society comes about, roughly speaking, through the consecration of an ethnic identity, which is a veritable process of social construction of a given collective identity. Human groups (peoples, nations, minorities, tribes, religious movements etc. and their leaders or political 'entrepreneurs') tend to mobilise the following main symbolic resources: a) the holy scripture of the collective memory; b) the transformation of a given land - in which the group claim to have their historical origins - into a Holy Land; c) the identification of an Enemy, at the same time both real and symbolic, viewed and emotively experienced as the Antithesis, the Evil One, responsible for all the evils and frustrations which afflict the social group. Thus defined, the ethnic identity takes on the appearance of the Pure against the Impure. Hence, the idea of resorting to holy violence is legitimized. Religions go to war when the right historical circumstances occur: when ethnos and political ambitions come together. Without the latter - i.e. without the autonomy of politics - the resurgence of religious wars and the involvement of religions in contemporary wars could not be explained.
This article explores the factors associated with support for a merger of Ontario's two publicly funded school systems (secular and Catholic). Drawing upon survey data from over 2,000 Ontarians, it investigates the sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of opinions toward school system reform. We find evidence that both political attitudes and religious identities are associated with school system attitudes, but that religious identity—specifically Catholicism—has a much more powerful impact. Our findings suggest that coalitions of support and opposition to a school system merger in Ontario are complex and not driven by a single obvious cleavage. Keywords: religious education, public opinion, Ontario ; Cet article explore les facteurs associés à l'appui d'une fusion des deux systèmes scolaires publics de l'Ontario (laïque et catholique). En nous appuyant sur les données d'une enquête menée auprès de plus de 2000 Ontariens, nous étudions les corrélations sociodémographiques et attitudinales des opinions concernant une réforme du système scolaire. Nos recherches démontrent que les opinions politiques et les identités religieuses sont associées à différentes postures au regard du système scolaire, mais que l'identité religieuse – en particulier le catholicisme – a un impact beaucoup plus puissant. Nos conclusions indiquent que les coalitions qui soutiennent et s'opposent à une fusion des systèmes scolaires en Ontario sont motivées par des idéologies complexes et non par un seul clivage évident. Mots-clés : éducation religieuse, opinion publique, Ontario
AbstractFollowing recent insight into how citizens respond to attempts to correct political and salient misperceptions (Nyhan and Riefler, 2010, Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330), we also expect that certain characteristics will predispose citizens to react strongly to messaging on highly contentious issues. Specifically, we expect that respondents will express an opinion that is even stronger in line with their predispositions when exposed to frames that challenge their position. Using an experiment on abortion opinion embedded in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we find little indication that Pro-Abortion Access and Anti-Abortion Access frames move opinion on abortion in the aggregate, but there is evidence that specific characteristics correlate with a "backfire" effect identified by Nyhan and Riefler (2010, Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330). In particular, gender, religiosity, and "Born-Again" Christian affiliation are all predictive of responding to either the Anti-Abortion Access or Pro-Abortion Access frame by moving the opposite direction as intended on the feeling thermometer.
UID/HIS/04209/2019 ; What were the means of religious regulation, and more specifically, what were the terms for the institutionalisation of the Catholic Church that the Portuguese authoritarian state adopted? This article adopts a new historiographic interpretation on these questions in order to emphasise both the experience of restructuring the separation and defending the persistence of secularism in the political and cultural debate over the course of the 20th century in Portugal. This argument moves away from the until recently dominant perspective that there was prevailing in Portugal that phenomenon termed "clerical fascism" that some of the literature deems to have been generalised across the dictatorial regimes of Europe between the World Wars. ; publishersversion ; published
