Why Religion in Politics Does Not Violate La Conception Americaine De La Laicite

Abstract:     
La conception Americaine de la laicite consists principally of a constitutional norm - the nonestablishment norm - and of the law that the U.S. Supreme Court has developed in the course of enforcing the norm. The nonestablishment norm forbids government - both the national government and state government - to "establish" religion. American laicite also consists of what we may call "the morality of liberal democracy". My aim in this essay is to explain why religion in politics does not violate American laicite; more specifically, my aim is to explain why political reliance on religiously grounded morality violates neither the nonestablishment norm nor the morality of liberal democracy.

Working Paper Series