There is in the U.S. a movement to allow individuals to escape conforming to Federal mandates on the basis of conflicts with their religious beliefs, this was most widely seen in the case of Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue a marriage license to a same sex couple, but this same argument is being used in numerous other cases. There is also the case of the baker in Colorado who wouldn’t bake a cake for a gay couple.

If one lived in France these issues wouldn’t arise, the reason being that France is a strongly secular country. In France it is of paramount importance that one subjugate ones personal beliefs to loyalty to the state. The state is larger than ones religion or ones personal beliefs, and I believe that most liberals in this country would agree with that outlook. However the U.S. is not France. In the U.S. there is a stronger belief than secularism, and that is the belief in individual rights. Common acceptance is that individual rights over ride the preeminence of the state, even if the legal basis of this belief may be in question.

I believe that this struggle, between individual rights and secularism  is what drives many of the stresses that exist in our current culture and political climate. It can be seen in the backlash against what is known as political correctness. Proponents of individual rights believe that they should have a right to express themselves as they wish, while secularists would say that in a pluralistic society it is important to be sensitive to the feelings of others as we all must live together.

So we can see that there is a dual desire among those who value individual rights and that is the desire to live in a community of like minded individuals. If a secularist looks at these desires in this light, the desire to be able to pursue ones life as one chooses, and the desire to live among like minded individuals, without the vitriol of the rhetoric involved, these seem to be fair and acceptable desires.

It does raise questions as to what and how far the role of government may go in shaping peoples lives. In order to have an effective government it is necessary that all people buy into many of the programs, the main concern being that if smaller communities are allowed to go their own way minorities of people who live within them may be discriminated against or may not be able to avail themselves of benefits associated with government policy. It is also true that an excessive pursuance of individual rights can simply lead to anarchy.

It may be easy to dismiss these people as simple cranks, or a very vocal minority within society, but there is a real issue to be debated here. The history and the culture of the U.S. makes it actually hard to see secularism in the long run winning out given it’s requirements. Perhaps in a generation that may not be such a leap, given the inclination of youth in the U.S. to look favorably on socialism. Still I believe that there exists in the left a enduring American belief in entrepreneurship, parents may teach their children to work in a team but they also teach them that they are special as individuals. It is hard to imagine anyone in the U.S. bowing to the French concept that it is o.k. for the state to determine to career path of individuals. In the U.S. there remains the belief that individuals can make a dramatic difference. These beliefs require the latitude of individualism, but individualism also requires an even playing field, it is no good to have individual rights without having access to the same things everyone else has. One may have to earn certain things in ones life, but one also shouldn’t have to earn the ability to start out from the same baseline as someone else, for instance a Muslim family in a Christian community may be starting out further behind in opportunity.

People must also show respect for each others beliefs. There is a sense among some who adhere to individual rights that they their beliefs haven’t been respected in the debate over what government can do, but their response to this is to ask for the right to extend the same lack of respect to others. This is clearly not an effective way to pursue the advancement of either individual rights or secularism.

Life is, of course, often a challenge for everyone. In dealing with the challenges of life it may be difficult to deal with problems which seem to be created for no good reason. Such as the inability to buy a wedding cake, or the need to accommodate someone whose life practices you find objectionable on moral grounds, or the need to express oneself in a certain way to avoid inflaming the feelings of people one has no interest in engaging anyway. But one must find a way to reduce these conflicts to human scale. If you lived in a small isolated community there would be gay people there, there would be people who didn’t share all the beliefs you do. Yet in this community people would find ways of working and living together. This isn’t some bizarre utopian dream, this is the way humans have lived for millennia. But the soundstage of national debate, the echo chambers of social media, the insecurities created by a world which is changing in rapid and seemingly out of control ways, and the noise created by those who stand to gain from divisiveness, blow up and expose our prejudices, on all sides. People must find ways of viewing those who differ from themselves as they would their neighbors, or distant cousins, people with whom one can’t simply put on the other side of a fence, the idea that we can live in a community or family of like minded individuals is fallacy, as even within the community of those who prize individual rights there are people of every stripe. Even within every church congregation there is disagreement over issues, it is simply dealt with the highest degree of political correctness, or what is otherwise known as politeness and tact.