How Should We Treat Religion? On Exemptions and Exclusions

The law of religious liberty in the United States tends to treat religion as special in two ways. It does first by offering religious citizens certain exemptions and accommodations based on their religious objections to otherwise generally applicable law. Second, it enforces certain exclusions of public expressions of religious doctrines or values. But this special treatment is unwarranted since states should recognize religious principles of action as legally equivalent to a variety of sectarian secular doctrines that people affirm as a matter of conscience. This essay argues for the coherence and relative attractiveness of (i) robust protections for both religious and secular conscience, and (ii) weak restrictions on noncoercive establishment of both religious and secular doctrines.