# Does religion have a place in public debate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 29, 2019, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709 "2019-05-29T15:02:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 131

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-religion-have-a-place-in-public-debate/834709/131 "2019-05-30T20:11:21Z")

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> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> If the law is based only on religious belief, then it does violate the US Constitution: because it favors that religious belief over all other religious beliefs and over a lack of religious belief.
> 
> And basing laws solely on the belief of a religion is exactly what a theocracy is. ‘God said so, therefore everyone has to do it.’ That’s theocracy: God is considered the supreme ruler of the society.

I don’t follow. A law based on religious belief does not necessarily violate the establishment clause, so long as it was passed democratically. It is still the people passing the law, not a church or state or even God. The government remains a “secular” government despite the motivation behind the law being religious in nature.

A constitutional amendment could change the government into a theocracy, however, and if said theocracy deprives me of fundamental rights I may well refuse to accept the will of society. But a mere legislative act? I wouldn’t take up arms over a law unless it was unconstitutional, and even then only in extreme cases where I can’t wait for the courts.

> [@thorny\_locust](#):
>
> If the USA amended the Constitution to say that laws based solely on the beliefs of a particular religion are constitutional, that would either pose an existential contradiction with the First Amendment, or would require repealing at least part of the First Amendment. This is theoretically possible, but I think it’s a really bad idea.
> 
> Passing an amendment to the Constitution that forbid abortion would also be theoretically possible, and would not in itself pose that problem, because passing such an amendment in itself wouldn’t necessarily be done solely on religious grounds. There are people making secular arguments in favor of banning abortion. I don’t think they’re good arguments, and I think this would also be a bad idea; but I think it’s a bad idea for different reasons.
> 
> People very often have multiple reasons for wanting to do something. It’s quite possible, and I’m sure quite common, that a particular person’s decision as to whether they think a particular secular argument is correct, incorrect, or just plain nonsensical may be based on their religious beliefs. But that’s not the same thing as imposing that religious belief on everybody else based only on the fact that some people believe it.

I [DEL]agree with you[/DEL] concur about the rest.

~Max

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