By Julia E. Fay
This Note seeks to contribute to scholarship on the growing tension between secularism and religion in the United States by considering the claim, made by some commentators, that secular liberalism should be considered a religion for the purposes of the First Amendment. Part I explains the historical background of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses and surveys what little jurisprudence there is from the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts regarding secular liberalism’s potential status as a religion. Part II lays out the landscape of current scholarship on the status of secularism, secular liberalism, and adjacent nontheistic belief systems as religions, including: (1) arguments made by some conservative Christians who maintain that secular liberalism is a religion; (2) related but distinct arguments made by scholars who argue that non-theistic beliefs should be accorded respect equal to that granted religions under the First Amendment; and (3) arguments from scholars who believe religion should continue to be treated as “special” and separate from non-religious, secular belief systems. Part III argues that, even if secular liberalism could be defined as a religion, it should not be, for two reasons. First, the proposition that secular liberalism is a religion is conceptually incoherent because it conflates strong moral conviction with religious belief. Advocates of this position misconstrue passion as transcendent commitment and treat “religion” as a functionalist label. Second, if accepted as true, this proposition would be problematic for legal theory and for the Constitution. This Note argues that the answer to the question of whether secular liberalism is a religion implicates the legitimacy of our government, because without a neutral principle of governance a democracy cannot justify its use of force against its citizens.