Originally posted on Millennial:
Millennial writer Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig recently spoke at the Yale Political Union, arguing the negative position on the resolution: “religion has no place in government.” Here is a small segment of her speech: I’ll now turn to the idea that religion ought to have a place in government…. There are several reasons why. The first is that law both expresses and enforces certain moral truths which cannot be divorced from broader moral systems, and for the religious — those sharing communities of some overwhelming concern — it’s disingenuous nigh impossible to deliberate on what truths the law should express without citing their religious priors. And this, secondly, allows their co-religionists to hold them responsible for their claims. The tendency of liberal societies to bifurcate religion and politics into two separate spheres — one private, one public — encourages religious participants in political deliberation to equivocate somewhat about their motives and beliefs, as it’s not really possible in that political context to interrogate them. Yet it should be. As long as the religious…