Hard Secularism

My Positions

1. There should be a total separation between religion and the state.
2. Religious groups should have no special privileges in government, law, or public institutions.
3. Individuals should be free to follow any religion, or none, without it affecting their relationship with the state.
4. Secularism protects the religious as much as the non-religious. A state that can privilege one religion can privilege a different one next time.

Notes

1. I support "hard secularism" (for example France's laïcité, established by the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State): the strict exclusion of religion from the institutions of public life. I do not support "soft secularism" (for example the UK or India), in which religion may influence culture, ceremony, and institutions provided it does not formally govern.
2. Hard secularism does not mean the suppression of religion, nor the exclusion of religious people from public life. It means that the state is neutral: it neither funds, endorses, consults, nor defers to any religion in its own capacity as the state. Religious citizens may argue for any policy they like; they may not expect their religion to count as an argument.
3. In the United Kingdom this would mean, at minimum:
   • Disestablishment of the Church of England, and removal of the monarch's role as its Supreme Governor (see UK Monarchy).
   • Removal of the 26 Lords Spiritual (Church of England bishops) who sit by right in the House of Lords. The UK and Iran are the only two states whose legislatures reserve seats for clerics.
   • Ending the legal requirement for a daily act of collective worship in state schools, and ending state funding of faith schools (see Religious Education).
   • Ending the automatic charitable status of "the advancement of religion" (note 5).
   • Removing religious exemptions from equality law where they affect people outside the religious community.
4. The common objection is that this is "hostile to religion". It is not. It is hostile to religious privilege, which is a different thing. Nobody considers it hostile to the Labour Party that the state does not fund it.
5. Charity law. Religions should not receive tax exemptions by virtue of being religions. In England and Wales, "the advancement of religion" is one of the statutory charitable purposes under section 3 of the Charities Act 2011. This means a religious organisation can obtain charitable status, with the associated tax relief, for promoting its beliefs, without having to show any public benefit beyond the promotion itself. I would remove "the advancement of religion" as a charitable purpose in its own right. Religious organisations that genuinely relieve poverty, advance education, or provide care could still qualify under those headings, on the same terms as everyone else.
6. Public money for religious buildings. Religious organisations may reasonably be allowed to apply for government programmes that support the maintenance of important and historic buildings, since the buildings are part of the shared heritage regardless of what is said inside them. The funding should follow the building, not the belief.

Personal Context

1. I am an atheist, but my secularism does not depend on it. A religious person who valued the freedom to practise their own faith without state interference would have good reason to hold the same position.

Sources

• Charities Act 2011, section 3, "Descriptions of purposes" — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/25/section/3

Also see

• Religion
• Humanism
• Religious Education
• Bishops in the House of Lords
• Religious Exemptions in Law
• Blasphemy
• Free Speech
• Colourblind social policy, which applies the same principle of state neutrality to other characteristics