Religion and Politics by Other Means

• Main Author: José Fernando Serrano Amaya
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 2018-01-01
• Series: Desde el Jardín de Freud
• Subjects: populismo; autoritarismo; género; sexualidad; conflicto
• Online Access: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/jardin/article/view/71465

The article discusses the 2016 debate over egalitarian adoption in Colombia in order to suggest that in the fields of gender and sexuality, religion and politics constitute the same flow of signifiers. That flow is dislocated, temporary, and unstable, since it depends on the dynamics of social conflicts and political transitions. Thus, the Colombian case can be interpreted as the emergence of a religious project in political terms, which secularizes its discourse in order to spiritualize society.  In turn, both the legal debate, with its appeal to State authority, and populism, with its longing to return to founding principles, are means for that emergence.