this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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That's precisely the point bud.
You cannot and therefore we should not use religion (in this instance) to write laws... it would be like banning musical genres based on my taste
I do not agree with the original quote from Hitchen that every religion must be wrong (although I do not think any are right since they are all just made up stories) but I do believe that should be left to people's personal choice and not a centimeter more.
Strictly speaking, we don't. Legislation has to be in line with the constitutional authority of the acting branch.
But when you talk about rationales for that action, there's no filter that exists to screen an individual's religiously informed ideology from their legislative, judicial, or executive behavior.
Hell, given the nature of popular democracy, there can't be. What are you going to do? Establish a religious exclusion test for candidates? For voters? Who would support that in a country with enormously influential and active religious organizations?
When large numbers of people engage in the same personal choices, they create an implicit policy. When state officials campaign, they appeal to the local customs and taboos. And those customs/taboos become laws, on the ground that they service some useful social function.
What prevents this snowball from forming? Are you going to forbid a plurality of people from propagating their views?
Well, that is not where the USA is going if they continue down the MAGA rabbit hole. They are now even quoting the Bible as a reference for law writing.
No but you are taking it too far. All I want are laws that are not based on religious beliefs. If they coincide with some religious belief I have no issues, I just do not want religion doctrine to be the driving force.
Which can objectively be avoided or mitigated.
Why should they? this is exactly what I am talking should not happen and something you just claimed "strictly speaking" does not happen.
Now you are just pearl clutching for effect
"Strict Constructionism" is a central tenant of the conservative movement. A big chunk of their revanchist ideology is embodied in the slogan (Make America Great Again), implying we left the rabbit hole and we need to go back.
That's a shit basis for a legal system, as it does nothing to protect individual civil liberties or form an egalitarian basis of enforced legal standards. I can shave the serial numbers off all my religious precepts and implement a secularized fascist government without anyone noticing the difference.
How do you mitigate majority rule in a democracy?
Constitutional law is a secularized standard of customs and taboos. The legalism stands in for the religiousity, but yields the same practical results.
We've seen this anti-religious hysteria in action within the US/UK before. It just got pointed at minority religious groups. Hell, Hitchens himself had no problem striking a common cause with UK sectarian Anglicans and Catholics when it came time to wage a Holy Crusade on the majority Muslim states of Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Secularizing your bigotry makes you no less of a shit.