Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hernandez, Sarah

Keywords

Religion, Sociology, Anti-Secularization

Area of Concentration

Sociology

Abstract

This objective of this thesis is to challenge the idea that secularization leads to a decline in religious authority through a content analysis of the United States Supreme Court case, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah. I build my argument against Max Weber's concern with expanding structures of rationality and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan's claim that in the field of US law, religious freedom is impossible. As an example of resistance to secularization, I examined the construction of the church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye. I contextualize the church's emergence in a history of Yoruban culture linked to an image of Santeria in Cuba. Further, I argue that practitioners in the United States created a defendable community of Santeria, in Hialeah, in relation to routine ideas about the way humans should treat animals. Though initially the purpose of my content analysis was to see how Santeria was established as a religion in the courts, I find that the argument focuses on whether or not the city had behaved in a neutral and generally applicable manner. Though on a surface level, this favors the secularization thesis, the successful defence of animal sacrifice continues to allow everyday practitioners their freedom. Additionally, the defense of animal sacrifice required the Supreme Court to identify Santeria as a religion without any discussion of its form.

Rights

The author has granted New College of Florida the nonexclusive right to archive, make accessible, and distribute for educational purposes this work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The copyright of this work remains with the author.

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