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This book provides fresh perspective on the origins and persistence of church 8211; state conflict in American political culture, exploring the inherent tension between the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

AbstractTwo aspects of democratic self-governance are analyzed: Collective self-governance, or the authority of citizens over one another, and individual self-governance, referring to the ability of each citizen to govern her/his own beliefs and actions. Individual self-governance is thought to require some level of autonomy on the part of individual citizens, and authenticity of personal preferences and desires. Beliefs about autonomy and authenticity in Roman Catholic and Islamic theology are considered, and these perspectives are applied to the problem of restricting certain types of discourse, based on the content of that discourse. While censorship if usually considered to be incompatible with democratic governance, Catholic and Islamic perspectives on individual self-governance suggest the possibility that some forms of censorship may enhance, rather than detract from citizen autonomy and authenticity, and enhance the possibility of positive collective self-governance.

Trends in public attitudes toward abortion, general acceptance of same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage are examined across regions and parties in the United States. Relative to Americans living outside the South, Southerners are less accepting of same-sex relationships, and these regional differences appear to be increasing over time. On these issues, multivariate analysis suggests that Democrats and Republicans are moving in opposite directions, with Democrats becoming more accepting of same-sex relationships, and Republicans (relatively) less so. With respect to abortion, regional differences do not appear to be increasing or decreasing over time. Both Republicans and Democrats are becoming more accepting of legal abortion, once the effects of other variables have been controlled, but the rate of change is substantially more rapid among Democrats. Thus, party and regional polarization on issues involving sexual morality seems likely to continue.

AbstractThe subjective correlates of abortion attitudes for six different religious traditions (Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam). For all six groups, attitudes toward sexual morality exhibit the strongest relationship with abortion attitudes, followed by the effects of attitudes toward human life. Gender role attitudes are much less powerful predictors of abortion attitudes. Further, the multivariate models which explain abortion attitudes are remarkably similar across religious traditions, with inter-religious differences largely being attributable to differences in the marginal distributions of the independent variables.