Aha!

Thank you for bringing up this most excellent point!!!

You have just raised a question which I really think is important, yet one which I did not adequately explain my views on. In order explain clearly, I’ll try to be extremely ‘streamlined’:

The setting: religious beliefs not only ‘permit’, but ‘command’ behaviour from their practitioners which is contrary to the secular laws of the land.

Question: which takes precedence? The right of the religious people to behave in accordance with their beliefs and commit illegal acts (thus exercising freedom of religion) OR the laws of the land which make certain actions illegal?

I fully agree that secular laws were not created in a vacuum. Moral or otherwise.

However, I do not propose in any way, shape or form that secular laws are somehow ‘morally’ superior to religious laws. Here, we could have a number of discussions, but I will only address the limited scope that lead to the point I was making in that post, because I fear I’ll go off on tangents…

It is not prudent to ‘legislate morality’.

Ever.

The laws which govern our land must never ever intrude into this area, precisely because what constitutes ‘moral behaviour’ varies greatly among the segments of our population. Accepting the very premise that a government – any governmtn – has authority over ‘moral choices’ of its citizens and ought to be capable of enforcing particular ‘moral’ behaviours on the population inevitably leads to oppression of the worst kind.

The role of secular laws is not to ‘define morality’ but rather to be a set of inviolable ‘negative rights’ inherrent to each citizen. By ‘negative rights’, I mean ‘rights’ NOT TO have stuff done to you. Like, say, the right not to be randomly killed. Or not to have a healthy bit of your body amputated before you are old enough to consent to it…

So, how to reconcile – for example (since this is what I’ve been dealing with in my posts last week) – the right of a parent to exercise their freedom of religion and circumcising their child with the child’s right to bodily integrity? Does the right of the child not to have a healthy body part amputated outweigh the parents’ religious belief that that particular body part must be cut off?

Now, let me get back to the point I was making:

Secular laws are not ‘morally superior’ to religious laws. They were NOT handed down, carved in stone and imposed onto a people.

Rather, secular laws in ANY society are the result of negotiations among various segments of the population. Instead of some ‘vacuum’, secular laws are a compromise of where the lines of ‘minimum interference’ of one person with another lie. THAT is the reason why the secular laws must take precedence: they are an AGREEMENT among all us citizens as to how we conduct ourselves.

Precisely because the secular laws are not ‘set in stone’, they will change and evolve along with the society. That is why, even though we cannot tolerate physical actions which violkate this ‘citizens contract’ we have with each other, we must tolerate all religious beliefs and their expression. WIthin the laws, yes.

But by ensuring freedom of speech for everyone, people have the ability to influence the continuously evolving laws. If they hold specific religious beliefs, they can exercise their freedoms to affect change in public opinion, which will lead to change in laws.

That is why ensuring freedom of religion to believe and speak out about things which are currently illegal is not an empty right, even if the actual act they would like to act upon is still forbidden by law!

Let me use an example: some religions believe that in order to assist their spiritual journey, they ought to consume mind-altering narcotics. Currently, this act is against the law. But, because they have the freedom to continue to hold their beliefs and speak them, they could normalize the idea so that laws banning it may be struck down. Then, once the act is no longer against the law, they must be free to practice it.

The difference I am drawing is between obeying the law and working to change it and defying the law….

Freedom to believe and say whatever one wants ensures the ablitiy for our secular laws to evolve to reflect the changes in our society. But the reason that ‘religious freedom’ may not ‘trump’ them, permitting people to break the secular laws because they think their religion permits them to do so is precisely because the secular laws are a negotiated agreement among the citizens of a specific country on how to interact with each other!

You cannot have a contract where some people uphold it while others do not feel bound by it.

Secular laws are that contract…..

I hope that clarifies why I refuse to accept ‘religious belief’ as a valid reason for a person to break secular laws. If we do not expect our citizens to obey the secular laws – we do not have a society!