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The Place of Religion in Australian Sociolegal Interaction

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Abstract

Iwas in Honolulu with my family on June 28, 2013. As we strolled along Kalakaua Avenue that evening, I noticed a person carrying a sign announcing simply that “Jesus Saves Your Lives,” who had found herself inches from another person wearing sandwich board signs inviting people to fire real semiautomatic rifles and handguns at a local firing range. For me, the juxtaposition could not have been starker. The two issues that seem most to typify the United States to the rest of the world, and that also seem to fascinate the rest of us—religion and guns—squared off, as represented by two adherents to those positions. And of course, this raised the question of how law deals with religion in a liberal democracy. On that day in Honolulu, and across the United States, it was no academic question; you may have noted the date on which this occurred: June 28, 2013.

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© 2015 Timothy Stanley

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Babie, P. (2015). The Place of Religion in Australian Sociolegal Interaction. In: Stanley, T. (eds) Religion after Secularization in Australia. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137551382_5

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