by Matthew Sitman
Kenan Malik provides an 18-point guide to the logic behind religious freedom, and tries to establish what it should mean in the contemporary world. Especially interesting is the way our current situation differs from the era in which the principle first emerged:
Today, we live in very different world from that in which concepts of religious freedom first developed. Religion is no longer the crucible within which political and intellectual debates take place. Questions of freedom and tolerance are no longer about how the dominant religious establishment should respond to dissenting religious views, but about the degree to which society should tolerate, and the law permit, speech and activity that might be offensive, hateful, harmful to individuals or undermine national security. We can now see more clearly that religious freedom is not a special kind of liberty but one of a broader set of freedoms. If we were to think about religious freedom from first principles today, it would not have a special place compared to other forms of freedom of conscience, belief, assembly or action.
The Dish 