This paper finding is the existence of recurring unsettled negotiation between the Islamists and the Nationalists during three important constitutional works in Indonesia (the making of 1945 ...Constitution; the work of Konstituante to draft a new constitution in 1955-1959; and the constitutional amendment 1999-2002). Such fragile political consensus creates a legal gap in the Indonesian legal system: constitutional guarantee on religious liberty on one hand, and discriminative derivative laws and court decisions in relate to religious liberty on the other hand. This paper argues the legal gap happens because historically, discourse over religious liberty never settled during constitutional debates. It leads to ambiguous constitutional articles on religious liberty such as the seemingly contradicting Article 28 I (1) on absolute rights and Article 28 J (2) on the limitation of rights. The ambiguous constitutional articles give no solid basis for protecting religious liberty, especially for minority, although explicitly Article 29 (2) of the Constitution stating, ‘The State guarantees freedom of every inhabitant to embrace his/ her respective religion and to worship according to his/ her religion and faith as such’. This paper will explain the unsettled negotiations during the making of Pancasila and the Jakarta Charter in 1945; the debate within Konstituante’s work in 1959; and the debate during constitutional amendment in 1999-2002.
The Value of Sacred Places Seglow, Jonathan
Journal of law, religion and state,
03/2021, Letnik:
9, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
This article explores the neglected topic of the value of sacred places of various religions. The great value that adherents of these religions ascribe to these places cannot account for ...their public political value, given that the duty to treat such places with respect falls on all citizens, whatever their faith. The article considers and rejects three views regarding the value of sacred places: that they are protected by cultural rights, that damaging them would hurt the feelings of religious believers, and that they are the collective property of religious groups. It then considers the right to religious liberty, which has been argued in recent scholarship on religious accommodation to be best defended through the value of integrity and by honoring one's religious commitments. Although integrity is too individualistic a concept to explain the value of sacred places directly, the way in which these places embody sacredness here on earth helps enable integrity by showing what one's commitments are invested in. This view of the value of sacred places can account for the value of non-religious sacred places and for the duty to respect them all.
Beginning in the 1960s, the United States experienced religious and partisan conflict over cultural issues such as abortion that was described as a “Culture War.” Recent, highly salient battles over ...religious liberty and transgender rights have led the media to characterize these issues as “new fronts in the culture war,” thereby giving reason to revisit the culture wars debate. In this article, I test whether the public is polarized on religious liberty and transgender rights, as well as whether these issues share the same underlying structure of public opinion as traditional culture wars issues. Using a dataset from the Pew Research Center, I find that a substantial subset of Americans hold polarized views on these issues, and that religion and party are important factors in explaining that polarization. The results suggest that the religious and partisan divides that fueled the original “culture wars” remain an important factor in American politics.
Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements for healthcare workers in the United States, instituted at the height of the pandemic to protect vulnerable patients and preserve the infrastructure of ...healthcare, nonetheless met with resistance by some members of the work force. As unprecedented numbers of employees sought religious accommodations, chaplain leaders were recruited by institutional leadership to adjudicate these requests, either alone or as part of a committee.
This study reports results of a survey conducted from 6/1/2022 to 7/15/2022 with U.S. healthcare chaplains (n = 76) who were involved in the evaluation of coworker requests for religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine anytime during the pandemic until they accessed the survey. Chaplains were recruited online through national chaplaincy and ethics organizations. A mixed methods design facilitates integration of statistically significant associations with chaplains’ in-depth reflections on their experience. Surveying the religious experts on the review committee affords a rare look into how the tension between the free exercise of religion in the workplace and the obligation to protect the public played out during the pandemic. The study further addresses a gap in research literature on the experience of chaplains during the pandemic and identifies unique features of moral injury experienced by a subset of healthcare providers.
Chaplains largely perceived their involvement as promoting an ethical, informed process of review. Although all chaplains found this role stressful, high levels of meaning were protective against distress. Sources of distress identified included: ethical concern that granting exemptions would lead to the spread of the virus; inconsistencies in the review process; and, repeated exposure to coworkers’ misunderstanding and political use of religious teachings. Featuring prominently in comments from chaplains was the difficulty navigating requests in the context of anti-science, anti-vaccine, and politically charged public discourse.
•Religious accommodation requests increased in healthcare during the pandemic.•Chaplains brought religious expertise to organizational review committees.•Chaplains helped promote a fair, informed review process and religious pluralism.•Moral injury resulted from repeat exposure to the politicized nature of requests.
La doctrina de la tolerancia bayleana suele ser analizada atendiendo a sus componentes morales, no tanto a su articulación política. En este artículo defenderemos que la soberanía indivisible que ...propone Bayle es indisociable de su doctrina de la tolerancia que implica una estricta separación entre la obligación política y la adhesión religiosa voluntaria, lo que permite, al mismo tiempo, proteger la libertad individual de conciencia y el pluralismo confesional. Por esa razón, entendemos que la tolerancia bayleana está articulada en términos puramente políticos, no religiosos o morales.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), published by the United Nations in 1948, states that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right ...includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”_x000B__x000B_Malaysia recently won its bid to sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council from 2022 to 2024. However, while the country’s constitution is progressive in underlining the rights of religious minorities, this is severely lacking in practice as it exercises heavy regulation on religion, combined with restrictions on the practices of certain faiths._x000B__x000B_Based on interviews and focus group discussions conducted in Malaysia, this paper uncovers the challenges faced by religious minorities in the country, and how treatment of them at the hands of religious authorities is illustrative of encroachments on their right to the freedom of religion. The groups that will be focused on are the Millah Ibrahim (Abrahamic Faith), the Baha’i faith, and the Ahmadiyah faith, all of which have been banned by the religious authorities._x000B__x000B_It was found that the three groups navigate their respective situations differently. For example, Millah Ibrahim adherents are very conscious of the repression that they face, and have resorted to propagating their teachings in secret and migrating to countries that are more lenient towards them. On the other hand, the Baha’i community feel they have relative freedom to practise their rituals despite the fatwa which bans their movement, and therefore do not see the need to take legal action against the authorities. This is in contrast to the Ahmadiyah adherents who use legal means (such as court cases) to counteract the repression towards them._x000B__x000B_Considering the precarious position of these groups, it is recommended that religious authorities engage with these minority groups so as to deepen their understanding of these groups and to properly assess the perceived threat that they allegedly pose. Such engagement would also allow Malaysia to uphold its commitment to human rights.
The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region.Religious Difference in a Secular Agechallenges this assessment by ...examining four cornerstones of secularism-political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains.
Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais-religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country-Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe.
A provocative work of scholarship,Religious Difference in a Secular Agechallenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.
In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied ...around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. Beyond Religious Freedom persuasively argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. She shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between "expert religion," "governed religion," and "lived religion," Hurd charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. A forceful and timely critique of the politics of promoting religious freedom, Beyond Religious Freedom provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.
This article discusses the balance that must be struck, pursuant to the European Convention on Human Rights, between the right to autonomy of religious communities and the fundamental rights of the ...employees of such communities. A religious community can require at least some of its employees to show loyalty to the religious and moral doctrines of the community, but at the same time, such loyalty requirements can affect the fundamental rights of the employees, as when a religious community prohibits its clergy to marry. With regard to disputes concerning such loyalty requirements, the European Court of Human Rights has outlined a proportional balancing test. This article analyses the proportionality assessments conducted by the Court in respect of such disputes and aims to contribute to a more comprehensive and clearer understanding of various aspects of these assessments. The article also draws on case law of other international tribunals in respect of some of the questions to which religiously based loyalty requirements can give rise, in order to compare and contrast their approach with the approach of the European Court of Human Rights.
Abstract If the paradigm of secularization as replacement was falsified by the permanent vitality of the religious dimension on the world horizon and in the public sphere, the universalization of the ...paradigm of secularization as differentiation, on the contrary, turns out to be an essential guarantee of the maintenance and promotion of the rule of law and human rights. From an alternative perspective to both secularism and fundamentalism, public theology today is therefore called upon to reconstruct and argumentatively justify the function of religious freedom as a basic principle of democratic society, within the framework of cognitive and normative disjunction between religion and citizenship which rules modernity. It is urgent to theologically demystify the regressive manipulation of this principle, as a vector of a democratically disruptive tribal pluralism, in contradiction with its nature as a catalyst for an integrative pluralism essential for social cohesion and the common good.
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