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| Secularism - the only way Democracy can work |
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The word democracy means only that the people rule. Other than,
perhaps, requiring freedom of speech and equal access to the ballot, indispensable
requirements of self-rule, the notion of democracy sets no limits on what the people may
do in their sovereign capacity.
All liberal constitutional
democracies in the world impose restrictions on what private activity government may and should
regulate, including, of course, religious behavior, and what values it may assimilate, and
enforce, as its own.
There are several broad generalizations that can be made about the role
and place of religion in liberal democracies. First, in a liberal democracy, citizenship
is not dependent on adherence to an official religion or even a state approved religion.
Religion, therefore, should never be the constitutive element of citizenship.
This principle is today accepted universally in the Western world.
Equally well accepted is that in a liberal democracy the government may not penalize
citizens because
they profess a faith that is not shared by a majority of their fellow citizens. It is also
settled that in a liberal democracy citizens enjoy the freedom to express their religious
views, and to form institutions consistent with those views, without fear of punishment or
civic disability.
Liberal democracies also assume that citizens should not be prevented
from practicing their faith and that the government ought not to
interfere with
the religious decisions of citizens or their institutions.
This last principle is not
always observed, at least as a matter of enforceable legal principle. In the United States
the principle means only that the government may not single out religious practices for
regulation. In the name of equal treatment of religious and nonreligious citizens, the
courts have increasingly refused to recognize a special right to exemption from ostensibly
neutral government regulation for religious practice, even though the constitutional text
surely sounds as if one were intended.
It is likewise universally accepted that liberal democracies cannot
compel the doing of religious acts or attendance at worship services, although there is
less than full agreement over the extent of this principle as it applies to children in
state-run schools. Whether the state can compel participation in some form of prayer
services, and, even if not, what constitutes coercion to participate in religious
activities, are unfortunately still sharply disputed questions.
It should, in our opinion, however, be widely recognized that Secular
Democracies can not and must never allow for any kind of worship in
public schools financed by taxpayers monies. On the other hand, it
should not deny that right to private schools financed by private funds.
The United States is the most religiously diverse country in the
world. In no other nation can you find as many varied religious groups,
beliefs and practices as there are there. The Founding Fathers recognized in
their own times the great theological differences among not only
different religions, but also among the many Protestant sects.
They saw
the tyranny that government-sponsored religion wrought. That is why the
US has a secular constitution – and Bill of Rights—that provide
strict protections for religious practice and safeguards against
government-endorsed religion. The US secular government and protections
of
religion are what have allowed religion to flourish and grow there.
However, there has been a constant stream of legislation and
executive action to impose religious ideas into law with the mistaken
belief that what is good for one group of religious people should be
good for everyone.
This is absolutely not permissible in a Secular Democracy.
The truest test of religious freedom within a Secular Democratic State is not the ability of every
religious group to do as it pleases, but for every individual to be able
to freely choose his or her own religious or nonreligious path without
recrimination or consequence.
Bottom-line - religious freedom should be an equal part within every Secular Democracy but nothing more or less than that.
EU-Digest
