Rationalia Abortion Thread (A New Start)

[pErvinalia]

I purposely avoid off topic nonsense from him now. Other than sometimes pointing out it is off topic.

[JimC]

Ays, it appears that holding forth on political theory and constitutional literalism, like in so many other threads, is an effective way to bait others into avoiding the issues at hand. I wonder what would happen if we all suddenly decided to ignore the off-topic derailments? Would the forum just implode perhaps, or would it bring back the atmosphere of old, and maybe some absent friends along with it?

The posting rate would drop by 90%

[pErvinalia]

Brian and Coito are about the only people now who address his red herrings. Brian, heal thyself!

[Seth]

All I have said is that whether a given political policy is to be adopted (such as the degree of government regulation or taxation, for example) should be widely debated, and then placed into the political marketplace to sink or swim on its merits as assessed by enfranchised citizens. (With the usual proviso of some sort of base-line legal or constitutional framework to prevent excessive government interference with legitimate human rights)

I thought you believed in free markets?

I do believe in free markets. But free markets are not controlled by the government, they are necessarily free to represent the economic needs and policies of consumers.

And by the way, tell me about the vast number of Libertarian candidates who have been elected to office in the USA...

Quite a few of them actually, but mostly in more local positions rather than national ones. This has to do with Progressivism's evil agenda of strapping the poor to the side of the Progressive ship of state and threatening to cut them loose to drown if they don't kick their feet and help propel the vessel in the Progressive direction.

When the dependent class, any dependent class anywhere on earth, gains the majority and thereby the power to vote themselves largess from the public treasury, they inevitably do so and the nation quickly fails economically, to paraphrase Alexander Tytler.

[Seth]

As I said - you don't really get secularism.

Secularism isn't anti-religious, nor does it stand in opposition to religious freedoms (both freedoms from and to). In fact secularism is the only principle that secures religious freedoms for all by maintaining the principle that no particular religion holds no particular sway in public affairs - and certainly holds no sway over any other religion, or over the non-religious.

Well, by your own definition you prove that your argument is wrong. Secularism stands in opposition to ALL religions where those religions might inform public policy. That is its express purpose, as you point out. The problem with this is that most people WANT their public policy to be informed by their religious beliefs to one degree or another because most people hold religious beliefs of one sort or another.

Therefore, as per your argument, secularism maintains "the principle that no particular religion holds no particular sway in public affairs." This notion however is not only anti-democratic, it's totalitarian in nature because in order to prevent a "particular" religion from holding sway in public affairs it must necessarily suppress ALL religious influence in public affairs, lest a majority religion-based view of public affairs take control.

This is why secularism is not the common ground you suggest it is in practice. While you may be espousing a lofty principle of secularism with which one might easily agree with if only the surface argument is considered, it is the actual practices of secularism when secularists are permitted to "hold sway" in government that are problematic and dictatorial in nature.

Whereas people of religion hold diverse beliefs about how much their religious beliefs ought to influence public policy and whereas such people may agree to disagree and find a pseudo-secular middle ground that prevents the overt control of society by one or another religion, secularists (which is actually to say religious Atheists for the most part) on the other hand eschew ALL religion-based influences on public policy as a matter of ideological policy and therefore, as the FFRF does so often these days, they will not tolerate any such influence at all and will actively work to eliminate any appearance of religious beliefs that might democratically find their way into public policy.

Secularists use high-sounding rhetoric such as yours to justify this pogrom against religion, but the factual result of their efforts do not "secure religious freedoms for all," they suppress religious freedom and expression for everyone but the religious secularists by declaring and making law the notion that any public exposure of religious freedom or exercise inherently "sways public policy" and therefore must be prohibited. That's exactly what the whole anti-nativity display movement is about, and absolutely nothing else.

The actual agenda of "secularists," which is again to say religious Atheists, is to extirpate from public view any form of religious expression other than their own non-theistic religious beliefs such as their worship of unfettered abortion rights. Even an objection to this secular religious dogma is condemned as "religious zealotry" and those who speak out against abortion are demonized as "religious zealots," among other calumnies, precisely in order to marginalize their complaints because those complaints are presumed by secularists to be improperly influenced by religion.

Although many atheist would also count themselves as secular also, secularism is not the preserve of the non-religious and can be, and sometimes is, fully consistent with a religious outlook.

Perhaps in theory, but certainly not in practice.

So, secularism pertains not only to religious neutrality in public affairs but the principle that the conditionalities of religious members do not and cannot be applied all.

In other words, the religious beliefs and sensibilities of religious members of the society must be actively suppressed so that they "do not and cannot" be applied to all.

The only people who maintain that secularism stands in opposition to religion are those among the religious who believe that a state of self-declared religiosity (which invariably means their religious tradition or nomination) is, should be, or must be afforded special rights, treatments, privileges, exemptions, status, or regard.

This is a baldly false statement proven by the fact that I (among others) maintain that secularism stands in opposition to religion and I absolutely do NOT believe that anyone's "religious traditions or nominations" entitle them to any sort of special treatment.

Which is not to say that the democratic will of those who hold religious beliefs and morals and wish to have their government represent those beliefs and morals can be dispensed with or ignored, because to do so is to suppress their right to have their religious beliefs reflected in their democratically-elected government. Religion cannot be fully separated from secular government because government is the practice of governing people, most of whom have religious beliefs and morals that by the very definition of democratic governance they have a perfect right to expect their government to reflect to some degree. The question is to what degree, and secularism, which as we see from your argument, claims to be "common ground" for all individuals and therefore the appropriate metric for all government actions or policies, is not in fact "common ground" at all, but is most certainly and firmly "Atheist religious ground" and the religious ground of Atheism exclusively.

Because secularism only tolerates religious expression outside of the sphere of public policy and never within it, as you clearly state, it becomes de facto Atheism where Atheistic religious dogma holds sway and control and competing religious beliefs are stamped out and extirpated.

This is how it actually works in real life, Brian, whatever you think secularism might mean in the abstract and intellectual sense of the word.

The court system is, by nature and definition, a public affair. Religion has no place in dictating or defining (specifically religious) moral obligations or laying down or enforcing (specifically religious) laws which, again by nature and definition, must apply to all equally regardless of religious status.

Except that every moral principle any society has created has been based in religion to one degree or another, which negates your argument. While it is true that the reasonable person and society limit the direct influences of religion on public policy so as to create a system where everyone feels fairly treated and not discriminated against for purely religious reasons, secularism is not the common ground you wish it to be.

Secularism in practice is largely Atheist fascism, however high-sounding it's philosophical principles might be.

[Seth]

Seth is just babbling to distract from the fact that he's most avowedly not a secularist. Anyone who supports Donald Trump is not a secularist. Not that we needed the Donald to know that about Seth.

More personal insults and drivel from a mindless pseudo-intellectual who couldn't argue his way out of a wet tissue.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Secularism stands in opposition to ALL religions where those religions might inform public policy.

Change that to "control public policy" and you might be closer to the mark. In a democracy, a vast array of social groups, movements etc. can inform public policy.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

Secularism stands in opposition to ALL religions where those religions might inform public policy.

Change that to "control public policy" and you might be closer to the mark. In a democracy, a vast array of social groups, movements etc. can inform public policy.

Yes, they can, and do, but when it's a religious group that seeks to "inform" public policy, even merely through advocacy of a position based in their religious beliefs, such as opposition to abortion, secularists insist that this information is a prohibited intrusion of religion into "abortion rights," either as a direct claim or as part of a smear campaign intended to suppress religious opinions on the subject.

This is because secularism maintains that ANY religion-based influence on public policy comprises an improper attempt to control public policy, whereas supposedly "secular" influences by let's say Planned Parenthood, are not just appropriate, but are exclusively appropriate. When it comes to opposing abortion, secularists always define the debate as one between "secularism" and "religion" because they deliberately intend to frame any objection to abortion, no matter how secular that objection might be (such as my own), as a "religious" objection and therefore an improper and impermissible intrusion of "religion" into public policy.

[surreptitious57]

Secularism allows for freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion so in that respect it is entirely compatible with the First Amendment
Unless one lives in a truly atheistic society there will always be attempts by the religious to influence public policy. This is perfectly acceptable
as long as the religious do not think they have an absolute right to do so as they do not and nor does anybody else. Any decision affecting public
policy [ which includes all laws ] should as much as possible be arrived at using logic rather than emotion. For logic is a higher form of reasoning
than emotion which can actually be devoid of reason. So consequently may make for very bad law which may have to be repealed at some point
And so when elected politicians are formulating laws for how their citizens should behave it should be done so with as much clarity as is possible
This process however can be severely compromised if said politicians think their belief system should be passed into law without critical scrutiny
But all ideas regardless of what they are or where they come from need to be taken apart to determine their validity as tenets of law in a nation
Then religious ideas deserve no special treatment in this respect as they also have to be subject to the most brutal and uncompromising scrutiny

[Seth]

Secularism allows for freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion so in that respect it is entirely compatible with the First Amendment

Nonsense. There is no free exercise of religion if there is a competing right to suppress that free exercise of religion by those who claim a right to be free from the exercise of religion. That is most certainly NOT compatible with the First Amendment.

The only place in which anyone has any reasonable expectation that they will be free from religious expression is within the confines of official government actions. Anywhere else, including the public square, there is no right, much less any reasonable expectation that one will be free from the free exercise of religion by others.

What the Constitution and all the precedents mandate is protection of the free exercise of religion by anyone, almost anywhere (there are of course exceptions based not on the content of the religious expression but on the time, place and manner of that exercise) at almost any time. The duty of those who do not wish to participate in such exercises, or who do not wish to be confronted with such expressions is very clear: They are to either tolerate the enjoyment and exercise of religious freedom by others and mind their own business, or they must go elsewhere or otherwise control their own sensory input if they find that exercise to be intolerably offensive.

Nowhere is anyone given authority to suppress the free exercise of (otherwise peaceable) religious expression in the public square by non-government individuals merely to satisfy their tastes or desire to be free FROM religion.

Unless one lives in a truly atheistic society there will always be attempts by the religious to influence public policy. This is perfectly acceptable
as long as the religious do not think they have an absolute right to do so as they do not and nor does anybody else.

Well, I'd say as long as they do not actually have the absolute POWER to do so. They can think what they like about their, or their God's supremacy, and they can speak as they please about that belief, but they may not use the Mace of State to impose that opinion on others through governmental actions. And THAT is what "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion" actually means.

Any decision affecting public
policy [ which includes all laws ] should as much as possible be arrived at using logic rather than emotion.

Yes, it probably should, from the intellectual perspective.

For logic is a higher form of reasoning than emotion which can actually be devoid of reason. So consequently may make for very bad law which may have to be repealed at some point

Very true, but unfortunately largely irrelevant because human beings are actually creatures largely ruled by their emotions, particularly when it comes to public policy demands. That is precisely why we have the concept of "representative government." The purpose of representative government, and all of the layers of government and their internal and external checks and balances is exactly because humans are typically driven by their emotions, and the more powerful the emotion, like fear, the more their decisions are driven by those emotions.

The Founders knew perfectly well that the winds and tides of public opinion can be easily swayed and directed by demagogary and propaganda, and that if such unpredictable public opinion is permitted to rule (as in "democratic majoritarianism") and twist and turn wildly as public opinion is whipped up or suppressed about this or that popular opinion or person, society can have no stability because there will be no predictability in governance or law.

This is why the Founders strongly objected to and did their very best to constrain "democracy" by making governmental actions resistant to the whims and caprices of public opinion through the use of bureaucratic and legislative inertia. This inertia, such as the tripartite nature of the US government into Executive, Legislative and Judical branches, each of which is co-equal to the others and each of which acts in some way as a moderating influence on the others, was specifically planned by the Founders, and it's worked very well for more than 230 years here.

And so when elected politicians are formulating laws for how their citizens should behave it should be done so with as much clarity as is possible

Indeed, and the way in which we seek clarity, and consensus, is through the deliberately ponderous and mind-numbing political processes we have deliberately and intentionally placed in the way of public opinion being enacted into law. The whole point is to defuse the emotional content by subjecting public policy demands from the people to much protracted and sober legislative debate, executive review and approval, and judicial review as the last safety fuse against bad laws.

This process however can be severely compromised if said politicians think their belief system should be passed into law without critical scrutiny

Not really, because the other part of our system that prevents that being a problem is how and when we go about electing representatives. We do so in a carefully constructed manner that helps to keep legislatures from either obtaining or maintaining single-party political power. Yes, we have to sometimes put up with years of single-party rule, but it doesn't last forever and every couple of years the public has the opportunity to unelect those who are not properly representing their will.

So, what any individual, or group of legislators might think about the supremacy of their belief system, the checks and balances of both the legislative system and the executive branch and the judicial branch serve quite effectively to prevent the rise of theocracy in the US. Of course the most fundamental check against a theocracy is the First Amendment itself, which explicitly forbids Congress (and every other branch of government) from instituting a theocracy in the first place because to do so requires "laws respecting an establishment of religion" by which the Founders explicitly meant an establishing of an official, government sanctioned and obligatory state religion, as in the case of Islam and Sharia law.

This is why, for example, Sharia law is fundamentally incompatible with the First Amendment and would be struck down by the Supreme Court if attempts to impose it were to occur.

So what individuals think about their belief systems are well insulated and the legislative process, and the laws created thereunder, are very well protected against any sort of actual theocratic rule.

But all ideas regardless of what they are or where they come from need to be taken apart to determine their validity as tenets of law in a nation
Then religious ideas deserve no special treatment in this respect as they also have to be subject to the most brutal and uncompromising scrutiny

As is true of any law that imposes constraints on the individual's liberty interests. The first question I always ask myself when examining any law or proposed law is "How does this law serve to enhance and protect individual liberty and freedom?" If the proposal does not pass that test, then I will not support it and will argue against it to the best of my ability, for what is good for the individual is good for a society that is made up of individuals, each of whom benefit from protection of their liberties to the greatest extent possible consistent with ordered liberty and mutual free exercise of rights.

But while religious ideas deserve no special respect or consideration they are entitled to equal respect and equal consideration as part of the process of enacting the will of the public and may not be rejected or impugned simply because they may originate in or reflect the public desires of people of religion.

[surreptitious57]

There is no free exercise of religion if there is a competing right to suppress that free exercise of religion by those who claim a right to be free from the exercise of religion

The freedom of some to lawfully practice their religion should not extend to discrimination against those who do not share that religion just because
they have strength in numbers. No American citizen should feel they have to deny their non religiosity in public. In regular polls atheists are the most
mistrusted demographic and that is just because they are in the minority. This prejudice is without justification as no one should be denied their First
Amendment rights because others wrongly think their rights are more important. And the problem is that America identifies as a Christian nation even
though the Founding Fathers specifically rejected the dominance of one religion over all others. And therefore any non Christian American has as much
right under the Constitution as any one else to express their particular belief or non belief. Instead what happens today is that despite the intentions of
the Founding Fathers non Christians can be discriminated against just for being in a minority. This needs to be addressed so that all Americans can freely
and openly express their belief or non belief with no fear. It is therefore not a case of suppressing the free exercise of religion but rather of only allowing
one religion to be given preferential status solely because it is the most dominant one. And that is exactly what the Founding Fathers did not wish for now

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Secularism stands in opposition to ALL religions where those religions might inform public policy.

Change that to "control public policy" and you might be closer to the mark. In a democracy, a vast array of social groups, movements etc. can inform public policy.

Yes, they can, and do, but when it's a religious group that seeks to "inform" public policy, even merely through advocacy of a position based in their religious beliefs, such as opposition to abortion, secularists insist that this information is a prohibited intrusion of religion into "abortion rights," either as a direct claim or as part of a smear campaign intended to suppress religious opinions on the subject.

This is because secularism maintains that ANY religion-based influence on public policy comprises an improper attempt to control public policy, whereas supposedly "secular" influences by let's say Planned Parenthood, are not just appropriate, but are exclusively appropriate. When it comes to opposing abortion, secularists always define the debate as one between "secularism" and "religion" because they deliberately intend to frame any objection to abortion, no matter how secular that objection might be (such as my own), as a "religious" objection and therefore an improper and impermissible intrusion of "religion" into public policy.

Well, as a secularist, I am perfectly happy for religious people to put forward their views on an issue based on their religious beliefs or views of morality. In some cases, their take on morality may even lead them to a similar position on a given issue as me. However, they need to accept that their views on public policy are just one of many in a pluralist society, and the fact that their opinion derives from religious belief does not give it a privileged position compared to others. So, a secularist would say that a religious position on abortion is a valid expression of one segment of public opinion, but it does not have any extra force because of its source.

[pErvinalia]

I can't believe we are actually arguing about the virtues of secularism. Hundreds of years after the liberal enlightenment. Standing against this is a so called "libertarian". Baffling.

[Seth]

There is no free exercise of religion if there is a competing right to suppress that free exercise of religion by those who claim a right to be free from the exercise of religion

The freedom of some to lawfully practice their religion should not extend to discrimination against those who do not share that religion just because
they have strength in numbers.

"Discrimination" in what respect? Discrimination is a fundamental civil right related to the right to free speech, free exercise of religion and the right to freedom of association, which the Supreme Court has said necessarily includes the right of freedom of disassociation.

No American citizen should feel they have to deny their non religiosity in public.

And who is asking them to do so?

In regular polls atheists are the most mistrusted demographic and that is just because they are in the minority. This prejudice is without justification as no one should be denied their First Amendment rights because others wrongly think their rights are more important.

Well, there's a reason that Atheists are mistrusted, it's because people believe them to be untrustworthy. The primary, although not only reason many people feel that way is because Atheists have little or no ethical or moral foundation that is visible to those who would need to place their trust in Atheists to govern them. Rightly or wrongly, people want their leadership to have morals and ethics that are at least outwardly aligned with those of the majority who elect them and that the electors can hold them to. The common understandings of Christianity, as diverse as it may be in detail, just like the common understandings of Islam, provide a base for the public to hold its government to, and that gives voters at least some certainty that they are not electing a psychopath...at least theoretically if not always in practice, as we see with the election of Obama, which clearly shows that no system of checks and balances works perfectly every time.

Now it is certainly true that this generalized fear of Atheists (secularists) is not in and of itself always or even predominantly true and that a large degree of bigotry towards Atheists exists within the culture, but there are also plenty of examples of Atheist behaviors that reinforce the belief that they are unfit to lead. So, Atheists (secularists) are mistrusted and marginalized. It's not at all "just because they are in the minority," it's because their beliefs and many of the actions in support of those beliefs stand in opposition to the moral beliefs of the majority, specifically including abortion, and are manifested in ways by the Atheists themselves that both frighten and disgust Christians, who understandably reject Atheism and its advertised principles and objectives.

Christians naturally feel that their beliefs about certain subjects like abortion are indeed more important and are in fact morally superior to those who advocate abortion. This is a perfectly valid position for them to take and it's perfectly reasonable for them to base their public policy preferences upon their system of moral beliefs.

What you complain about is the marginalization of Atheists by the public, particularly when it comes to Atheism's influences in government, which absolutely occurs. But what you fail to understand is that said marginalization and mistrust is not a violation of any rights Atheists have, most especially their First Amendment rights.

Atheist speech and expression is hardly suppressed in the US or the UK or Australia or NZ.

What you are arguing for is not freedom of speech, it is mandatory acceptance of Atheism and Atheists by others. The problem with this is that there is no right to demand or compel social acceptance by or in favor of anyone. Social acceptance is not something that government could, even if it were empowered to do so, enforce in favor of Atheists or anyone else because the First Amendment protected right to freedom of (dis)association mentioned above specifically embodies the full right and authority of anyone or everyone to discriminate in their choices of who they will associate with or accept within their social or cultural circle of friends.

In short, by declaring yourself to be an Atheist you are consciously, deliberately and intentionally placing yourself outside of religious social circles of acceptance and fellowship. And when you choose to do so it shouldn't surprise you at all that persons of faith therefore exclude you from their social circles and ignore, or even openly reject your requests for social acceptance either for yourself or for your social and political ideas.

Just as the First Amendment compels everyone to tolerate the peaceable expressions of both speech and religion, it also fully authorizes everyone to pick and choose among those beliefs and ideologies presented to them and reject and even revile those with which they do not agree or do not wish to be associated. And it doesn't matter in the least how irrational or unexplained such discrimination might be, it's still the right of each person to choose to reject and disassociate from any other person or persons they don't want to associate with.

The only exceptions to this rule are found in specific anti-discrimination laws that only affect and control persons engaged in commerce.

It may be illegal to refuse to serve a black in your bar, or to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple at your cake shop in pursuit of commerce, but it is entirely legal and fully protected to discriminate against blacks, gays, Atheists, Christians or absolutely anyone or everyone else that you do not wish to associate with in both your private life and in your political decision making and voting.

So if Atheists are marginalized by the religious majority and cannot get elected to office they have no one to blame but themselves and their political platforms because they have no right to expect to be elected in spite of the fact that they hold political, social, moral and ethical positions that the majority of voters simply reject and refuse to sanction...which is their absolute right.

And the problem is that America identifies as a Christian nation even though the Founding Fathers specifically rejected the dominance of one religion over all others.

Well, not quite. During the time of the Founders, AFTER the Constitution was ratified, the Founders didn't have a problem with state-level state religions which in fact existed at the time.

Many states were as explicit about the need for a thriving religion as Congress was in its thanksgiving and fast day proclamations. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declared, for example, that "the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion and morality." The states were in a stronger position to act upon this conviction because they were considered to possess "general" powers as opposed to the limited, specifically enumerated powers of Congress.

Congregationalists and Anglicans who, before 1776, had received public financial support, called their state benefactors "nursing fathers" (Isaiah 49:23). After independence they urged the state governments, as "nursing fathers," to continue succoring them. Knowing that in the egalitarian, post-independence era, the public would no longer permit single denominations to monopolize state support, legislators devised "general assessment schemes." Religious taxes were laid on all citizens, each of whom was given the option of designating his share to the church of his choice. Such laws took effect in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire and were passed but not implemented in Maryland and Georgia.

After a general assessment scheme was defeated in Virginia, an incongruous coalition of Baptists and theological liberals united to sunder state from church. However, the outcome in Virginia of the state-church debate did not, it should be remembered, represent the views of the majority of American states that wrestled with this issue in the 1780s.
Source

The term "separation of Church and State" appears nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It is a philosophical construct only and not a law or constitutional principle. The term "wall of separation" likewise has no legal or constitutional basis but is rather a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson from a letter he wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802:

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and, in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" thus building a wall of eternal separation between Church & State. Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect,

[Jefferson first wrote: "confining myself therefore to the duties of my station, which are merely temporal, be assured that your religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine and that." These lines he crossed out and then wrote: "concurring with"; having crossed out these two words, he wrote: "Adhering to this great act of national legislation in behalf of the rights of conscience"; next he crossed out these words and wrote: "Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience I shall see with friendly dispositions the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced that he has no natural rights in opposition to his social duties."]

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & the Danbury Baptist [your religious] association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.l

What's important about both the express language of the First Amendment and Jefferson's colloquy above is that the "wall of separation" is not a wall which surrounds religion, built by the state to control the effects of religion on society, but in fact is exactly the opposite; it is a wall built around the state that confines the state and its actions with respect to the free exercise of religion by the people and absolutely forbids government to make laws that have that effect, intentionally or otherwise.

It is the free exercise of religion that freely occupies, engages and lives in the world that surrounds the constraining prison-wall built by the First Amendment around the state and it's authority that prevents the state (the government) from interfering with religion, not the other way around.

This is a vitally important concept for you to understand because Progressives and secularists wish to recast the constraints on Congress (and the states through the 14th Amendment) as being constraints on religion and religious expression in the public sphere, which is absolutely wrong and completely backwards from the clearly stated intent of the Founders.

Far from having a "right to be free from religion," individuals have a duty to tolerate (or endure if you wish) the free expression of religion by others, with certain limited exceptions of necessary regulation of the time, place and manner of such exercises. The only place where religious expression is prohibited is within the confines of the prison wall surrounding government and it's employees, which and who must carefully tread a line that neither advances nor inhibits the free exercise of religion by the people outside of government.

And just as important to understanding this issue is the fact that the right of free exercise of religion by the people extends to their political activities, preferences and votes. They are fully empowered to elect representatives who will reflect their religious beliefs in their legislative acts, consistent however with the idea that such legislation can neither overtly nor intentionally advance or inhibit any specific religion, or religion over "irreligion" as the SCOTUS wrongly puts it (because Atheism is in fact a religion, albeit a non-theistic one).

So when Christian influence is seen in secular laws it is there as a part of the right of the people to have their religion inform their political decisions about how their society will be democratically governed, but those influences are moderated and controlled by the principle that the state may not "establish" a state-sponsored or compulsory religion found in the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

And therefore any non Christian American has as much right under the Constitution as any one else to express their particular belief or non belief.

This is absolutely and completely true, so far as it goes.

Instead what happens today is that despite the intentions of the Founding Fathers non Christians can be discriminated against just for being in a minority.

You misunderstand the intentions of the Founding Fathers. They said absolutely NOTHING about social discrimination against anyone because social discrimination is, they understood well, a powerful force for attaining and preserving social order by making anti-social activities and beliefs and those who espouse them "undesireable" in polite society and therefore deliberately marginalized and refused social acceptance.

What they were specifically and ONLY referring to were the actions of Congress and Congress alone with respect to making laws establishing a state-sponsored and obligatory religion at the federal level. Only after the 14th Amendment was ratified were the protections against obligatory state religion applied to the states themselves, and to every subdivision of state government as well.

While the prohibition against a state, or the federal government making laws establishing one religion (or another) as the official state religion (as was the case in England at the time) were the primary intent of the Founders, it is also true, as we see in Jefferson's Danbury Baptists letter, the intent was also to keep government out of the free exercise of religion by the people outside of the domain of government.

This needs to be addressed so that all Americans can freely and openly express their belief or non belief with no fear.

Certainly the First Amendment imposes a positive duty on the government to protect the exercise of free speech from physical interference by others, and it implicitly imposes a positive duty on the part of other citizens to tolerate (peaceable) free speech and expression by others, there is no requirement or way to enforce "freedom from fear of expressing oneself." Fear is a subjective thing, and while it is certainly true that one has a right to speak freely and free of fear that one's speech and expression will be violently suppressed or interfered with, to say "with no fear" is to overstate the right protected.

If the "fear" involved is of being socially ostracized, marginalized or not accepted for one's beliefs or practices, then no one is protected against such discrimination because others have no affirmative duty to accept, approve of or participate in actions or beliefs they find repugnant or undesirable. Only in the case of overt discrimination in commerce based on specific class-based criteria (sex, religion, race etc.) is the companion right to freedom OF association, which is to say the right to freedom FROM association, infringed upon by action of law, and such intrusions on the right to freedom FROM association must be based on a compelling need to so regulate, must comprise the least intrusive regulation possible, and must actually achieve the valid governmental purpose (the "strict scrutiny" test).

In other words, while there may be a right not to be discriminated against in the providing of commercial services in interstate commerce in places of public accommodation because one is black, or a Catholic, or because one is a woman (or man), there is no right to demand social acceptance from others, although there is a duty on the part of others to tolerate (or endure) the otherwise lawful and peaceable actions of others in the exercise of their rights.

It is therefore not a case of suppressing the free exercise of religion but rather of only allowing one religion to be given preferential status solely because it is the most dominant one. And that is exactly what the Founding Fathers did not wish for now

Well, yes, but as you see from the above the issue is rather more complex than you suggest here. It is eminently possible (and factually true) for secularism and secularists to unconstitutionally suppress the free exercise of religion in the name of (ostensibly) not giving one particular religion "preferential status." And that is my point. Secularism is not common ground on the playing field of religion, irreligion and social interactions, and it cannot be made into common ground by the action of law precisely because doing so is, or can be, an unconstitutional suppression of religious liberty.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

Secularism stands in opposition to ALL religions where those religions might inform public policy.

Change that to "control public policy" and you might be closer to the mark. In a democracy, a vast array of social groups, movements etc. can inform public policy.

Yes, they can, and do, but when it's a religious group that seeks to "inform" public policy, even merely through advocacy of a position based in their religious beliefs, such as opposition to abortion, secularists insist that this information is a prohibited intrusion of religion into "abortion rights," either as a direct claim or as part of a smear campaign intended to suppress religious opinions on the subject.

This is because secularism maintains that ANY religion-based influence on public policy comprises an improper attempt to control public policy, whereas supposedly "secular" influences by let's say Planned Parenthood, are not just appropriate, but are exclusively appropriate. When it comes to opposing abortion, secularists always define the debate as one between "secularism" and "religion" because they deliberately intend to frame any objection to abortion, no matter how secular that objection might be (such as my own), as a "religious" objection and therefore an improper and impermissible intrusion of "religion" into public policy.

Well, as a secularist, I am perfectly happy for religious people to put forward their views on an issue based on their religious beliefs or views of morality. In some cases, their take on morality may even lead them to a similar position on a given issue as me. However, they need to accept that their views on public policy are just one of many in a pluralist society, and the fact that their opinion derives from religious belief does not give it a privileged position compared to others. So, a secularist would say that a religious position on abortion is a valid expression of one segment of public opinion, but it does not have any extra force because of its source.

Right. It does not have extra force or privileged position because it is a religious expression, it may however have extra force and privileged position because it is the majority opinion.

For those (like you) who tend to argue that "democracy" is inherently good and democratic determinism is inherently proper, the cleft-stick of this position is that if the majority democratically decides that what you want is not acceptable then you are screwed, even if the democratically-reached policy is entirely and overtly based in and supportive of one specific religion or sect.

Thus, if you believe in "democracy" and the rule of the majority, as all socialists do, and you argue that democratic determinism is inexorably correct and thereby obliges everyone to obey such determinations, you place your own rights, privileges, property and lives in the hands of the majority, which in my opinion is a very, very dangerous and incredibly stupid thing to do.

The reason that the United States is not a "democracy" is precisely because democratic determinism by majority rule is severely and deliberately constrained by the Constitution. The expression of certain enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights is the strongest check on democratic majoritarianism and the wholesale violation of people's rights by the tyranny of the majority. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to make it perfectly clear and unassailable that certain rights (although by no means only those enumerated rights) survive majority democratic determinism. In other words, the right to free speech, free exercise of religion, freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to due process, the right to a jury of one's peers, the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to bail, etc. cannot be voted away or even infringed upon by popular democratic vote. These rights, among others, are immune to the ordinary democratic processes we use in the making of law and social policy.

Without that Bill of Rights, and without the fundamental concept that the government is by, of and for the People and is a government that is only permitted to exercise those powers expressly granted to it by the People through the Constitution, the tyranny of the majority is always a serious risk to individual rights.

And that is why collectivism is, as a political concept, so very dangerous and immoral; it does not recognize that there are individual rights that are superior to and immune from the actions of popular democratic decision making.