A liberal democracy must include separation of religion and state |
Against the backdrop of our struggle for democracy in Israel, I recently attended a conference in Paris and remembered why the French system of government fascinates me. In France, a liberal democracy was established after many upheavals—the French Revolution in 1789 and the reign of terror that followed until the current Fifth Republic that was founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.
One of the most remarkable French phenomena is that a country with a Catholic majority, which fought bloody wars against Protestants, many of whom were expelled to the Netherlands and other Protestant countries, has become a state where secularism is enshrined in the constitution.
The secularism of the state (rather than the secularism or religiosity of an individual or community) was a pillar of the liberalism founded by Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mill, Rousseau, Spinoza, and others, who argued that in order for a person to be free, they need freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
Some would say that secularism in France has become extreme and turned into a kind of religion, meaning that the rules that uphold it involve anti-liberal coercion. For example, the ban on Muslim women covering their faces in public places is contrary to their religion. It may be argued that this law harms freedom of religion in the name of freedom from religion.
Separation of religion and state has allowed many Jews to find their home in France and the US. France was among the first........