Elephant in the Room

Despite a pretty spectacular two weeks of protests and demonstrations - which involved chanting monks and live elephants - the new Thai government has made a move NOT to declare Buddhism the official state religion:

Police failed to persuade the monks, who were joined by hundreds of supporters, to leave the elephants at the city limits as they marched into the capital, leading to brief scuffles.

The march came a day after coup leader Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin backed the idea of recognizing Buddhism as the national religion, amid a worsening Islamic insurgency in the south.

The first draft of a new post-coup constitution, made public last week, retains the wording on the topic from Thailand's previous constitution, from 1997. It does not name Buddhism as the national religion, and says the state will protect all faiths.

The demonstrators had been plugging for official recognition, since they say Thailand's traditional faith is threatened by the growth of Islam in the region. A panel convened to discuss the endorsement today recommended against it (thanks WWRN). The country experienced a military coup on September 19 that ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra, and the new government will put a revised constitution to public vote this fall.

By not declaring a state religion or state church, Thailand is joining the proud enlightenment tradition of "free market" religion, whose leading champion is of course... the Ukraine?

Well, that's according to Jose Casanova, who says that the Eastern European state has "the only European example of the denominational competitive market model developed in the U.S." The Ukraine accepts the competing presence of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, unlike the rest of the continent where one church is culturally dominant or faiths divide a country on geographic lines.

Who's Casanova? A sociologist who has written about the religious future of Europe for the European Commission and who uses words like "hegemonics" and "self-understandings." I ran across Casanova's ideas on ReligionWatch, which is worth a look if not the subscription fee (who pays for content anymore?).

Also making the church/state headlines, Turkish elections were canceled today , an upshot of the recent colossal hubbub about keeping the country secular. A week ago one million Turks, largely middle class, protested the candidacy of Abdullah Gul - who was suspected of having designs on the strong tradition of secularism in government the country has upheld since the 1920's.

Whether religion is a private or a public function, and whether or not that function should be enshrined by law, is a sore spot pretty much everywhere. That's the debate raging through these headlines. Does America have a state religion? Really good question to ask - and definitely the elephant in the room.