Maaaaaaaarten said:
I don't believe in a secular democracy.
Every government will make laws based on some sort of ideology, whether religious or not. As a result the moral freedom of some citizens will be impaired. Whether it be religious doctors, or atheist patients, somebodies moral freedom wil be impaired, in the scenario's we've mentioned. On what grounds does the government pick who's moral freedom to support and who's to impair? You say, religious beliefs don't have the right to infringe the freedom of any citizen? But then why do secular beliefs have the right to infringe upon the freedom of some religious citizens?
Of course we do need to infringe upon people's freedom. We cannot allow anybody to do whatever he wants. We don't give people the moral choice of whether to murder, steal or whatever. We infringe upon their moral freedom to decide these things for themselves. And it good that we do. But how do we decide what moral choices to give to the citizens to make for themselves, and what moral choices to make for them? We do this based on certain ideologies.
Thus whatever ideology a government adheres, be it 'secular' or religious, it will in some way impair the freedom of some citizens.
In this age of moral plurality and moral relativism, lawmaking has become a most difficult thing, and I'm glad I'm not responsible for it.
I do not agree with your analysis. If a secular democracy doesn't exist today (and, here, I don't necessarily fully disagree with you), then we have failed all of those enlightenment philosophies that pulled our civilization out of the darkness and, all too frequent, cruelty of religious obscurantism and the oppression of both lay and ecclesiastical aristocracies.
In fact if we don't continue to burn "heretics" and "witches" at the stake, or have the right to be critical of the power structure without risking our own skins; it is precisely because of the secular values these luminaries instilled in our culture and our Western tradition.
Though it is a both a culture and a tradition that I do not take for granted, for which they must always be kept under guard and looked after to ensure that recrudescence of the worst kind don't flare up. For this reason we have a state of laws, which, like them or not, are applicable to everyone; and which are no longer the dictats of a priesthood or aristocratic ruling class, but the legislation of a constitutionally elected body politic. Of course the laws emitted by the State must constantly be placed under the scrutiny of the citizenry (unfortunately, this doesn't always take place). However, when the state says a certain behavior or treatment is acceptable, except within rare, though logical, instances; it does so without making it compulsory to anyone. For instance the State has legalized abortion, yet it doesn’t force anyone to have one. Consequently for someone whose religion prohibits the procedure, they have every right to not have an abortion.
This is the subtle distinction, which needs to be kept in mind when critically evaluating whose rights are being infringed upon and whose aren't. However, as is all too often the case with some religious, for whom it isn't enough that
their rights aren't being violated by the State; they would further want to prohibit others from having access to those possibilities against which they protest (take the abortion example). So, beyond having their beliefs respected, they would also want the state legislation to impose upon the rest of society, whether of their same faith or not, or even whether religious or not, their moral worldview: because it is claimed to be based on an incontrovertible Truth, of which, however, there are no verifications. Furthermore they even form voting blocks to try and make sure their desires become legal reality. So it is a case of toleration and permission versus intolerence and prohibition, while in our society today the affiliations have been clearly delineated.
The secular state came about precisely for this reason: to protect those from having what they believe to be just and correct for their lives, so long as within the legal parameters, being denied them by someone else's religion (while at the same time defending a freedom of religion). The true secularist is never a threat to someone else’s religion, therefore: in the sense that he constrains no one to certain actions in conflict with one’s religion and religious beliefs. Certain options may be legally available, but they are not obligatory. This is a distinction which, however, certain people of faith aren’t willing to make, when considering the freedoms and rights of people without any religion or of a different kind.
Unfortunately, then, the same can't be said when the roles are switched. For this reason, there is a firmly drawn line in our democracy that the religious must not cross. They have every right to live as they see fit, provided not illegal (take the Mormons and polygamy, for example), while here there are also obvious coincidences between the religious laws and those of the State (though shalt not murder, steal, corrupt and so forth); but that line must never be crossed. So as Frenchfry said, the problem is when religious intollerance either negatively affects, or attempts to, the lives people of other pursuasions, not the secular state forcing the religious to live in ways contrary to their faith. This is simply not the case.
As I’ve said before, the other option, of course, for those inclined toward theocracy, is to go live in Iran.