DAY 355
CHALLENGE
“People shouldn’t legislate their religious views. We live in a democracy, and not everybody has the same religion.”
DEFENSE
This challenge is problematic on several grounds.
First, it assumes people in a democracy shouldn’t vote according to their beliefs. This is false. Democracies exist precisely to allow people to express their will regarding how society should be governed. Saying that they should not vote their will simply because it is informed by their religious views and others disagree with those views, is contrary to the fundamental enterprise of democracy.
We would not accept the same argument in a different field (e.g., people should refrain from voting based on their scientific views because other people disagree with those views), and we should not accept it here.
Second, people voting their religious views has done a great deal of good. In many countries, legal opposition to slavery, racism, and poverty has been motivated by people’s religious beliefs. We would not say that people motivated in this way should have refrained from voting because others disagreed with their religious views on these matters.
Third, while others’ religious freedom should be respected and protected by law in many situations, this principle is not absolute. Some- times the religious beliefs of a group are directly opposed to the common good. If the Manson Family believed it was okay to kill random people in Los Angeles, or if jihadist Muslims believe it is okay to attack innocent civilians in New York, that does not mean we are obliged to let them do these things.
Fourth, sometimes it is impossible for the law to accommodate different religious views because what is required by one religion is prohibited by another.
Fifth, the claim something is a “religious issue” is often a dodge used to avoid having to deal with the merits of the case. For example, pro-abortion activists often claim abortion is a religious issue. While—as with any issue—people may hold religious views regarding abortion, the truth is that it is a human rights issue that can be argued without any reference to religion (see Day 70).
In such cases, the claim one should not legislate religious views is a distraction from the arguments at hand. It is a conversation stopper used to prevent the merits of a question from being explored.