Second-class citizenship for those with deeply religious moral systems

[Volokh, Eugene]

Howard Schewber writes:
 
> None of those things are meaningful unless they are based on 
> a prior commitment to the proposition that they trump the 
> "God argument" in cases of conflict.  But (western) religions 
> teach that they take precedence over mere political 
> commitments because God is greater than any human mind or 
> will.  If a president gets up and says "God wants me to have 
> absolute control over our nation in order to further His 
> work, and I call on all Christians to support God's will and 
> on Christians in Congress to ensure that their colleagues do 
> not attempt to use the Constitution to interfere with my 
> execution of that will" then either he has done something 
> improper and is unfit for office, or the American experiment is over.

	Well, if a President gets up and says "Scientific materialism /
feminism / environmentalism mandates that I have absolutely control over
our nation," we'd condemn him, too -- but because we condemn absolute
Presidential control.  That, it seems to me, is what's doing the work
here, not the religious or nonreligious source of the President's
sentiments or appeal to his colleagues.  Conversely, if he says "God
wants us to fight to eradicate racial discrimination, because all people
are God's children," that's proper regardless of the religious mode of
the argument.