Secularism and the radical tradition

In this post, I typed: "during the age of revolutions and Enlightenment, anti-clerical sentiment became a clear characteristic of Liberal thought", but that isn't true. Not "anti-clerical" sentiment, but rather secularism. My phrasing was very clumsy.

Secularism has two planks to its bow, as it were. First, the absolute and uncompromising defence of the right of every person to faith, or no faith. Secondly, the equally absolute and uncompromising restriction of religion to the consensual private sphere.

Government, education, health provisioning and every other area of government must disregard entirely all religious belief. Children cannot be mutilated or raped - and yes, these actually are issues in contemporary western society thanks entirely to the presence of religion. Both things happen outside religion, but are treated as crimes. Within religion they should also be treated as crimes. Religion is no excuse. If an adult woman wants a relative to saw parts of her genitals away with a piece of flint, it's her business. If she attempts to similarly mutilate a child, it's the business of the police.

The founding fathers of America had the wisdom to enshrine this in their constitution, although it is under threat. As an aside, there's been some recent controversy about Ron Paul saying he does not "believe" in evolution. Well, nor do I, just as I don't "believe" in the existence of gravity. It's not a matter of faith in either case, but rather of empiricism. I know that's not what Paul meant, but it's a point that should be made more often. Paul wants to remove religious issues from the scope of the State and is therefore a secularist. The idea that seems to have arisen that to be a secularist you have to be an atheist is twaddle.

Secularism is an absolute requirement for any fully civilised state, and I type that in the full but disgusted knowledge that Britain is not a secular society. Without secularism you have government used as a tool of sectarian abuse and of the oppression of unfortunates within religious sects. I would cheerfully vote for a religious politician who was standing on a secularist platform. That's a good description of several of the people who acted as midwife to the birth of the world's first democratic, secular republic.

Unfortunately, as the post linked to at the top of this one demonstrated, what we now have is secular politicians like Ken Livingstone pandering to religious special pleading.

Livingstone considers himself to be a man of the liberal, radical tradition. A more complete betrayal of a political legacy is impossible to imagine.