Xequecal wrote:
Kaffis Mark V wrote:
Okay, that's nice, Taly. The only one that I can attribute to religious influence is the contraception thing, though -- the rest of those positions are perfectly acceptable secular policies, on the face of it.
For instance, one does not require religious motivation to draw the arbitrary line in the sand on the concept of when life begins early enough to support the illegality of abortion.
Nor does one require religious conviction to refuse to acknowledge most divorces as a matter of contract law, I imagine.
Failing to recognize divorces is most certainly about religion. What valid secular reason could there possibly be to forbid two people to dissolve a contract by mutual agreement? I could understand if it banned divorce when only one of the two people wanted one, but not one by mutual agreement.
Harm to the children.
Yes, I understand perfectly well it's a shitty reason. That doesn't, however, mean that it is not secular. The degree to which a law is religious in motivation or secular in motivation has nothing to do with it's merit. A law does not need a
valid secular reason to be non-religious, just some sort of secular reason.
This is why the courts have ruled that "Blue Laws" are (generally) legal here in the U.S.; the state can have an interest in promoting a day of rest that has nothing to do with religious observance. We can argue all day about whether the state should do so, but the fact remains that just because a laws is stupid, unnecessary, or absurd does not mean it's in any way religious, even if it bears a resemblance to the imaginings of some as to what religious laws might be like.
In any case, neither this law, that on abortion, that on contraception, or any similar law is "theocracy". That's like calling rude sexual advances rape. Ireland is governed by a democratically elected goverment. No church has any official power in its government.
Greece officially recognizes Greek Orthodoxy as the prevailing religion in the country, and has a political party called the "Popular Orthodox Rally". Yet no one ever talks about any Greek "tendancy towards theocracy". In part, this si because the greek Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all.
The term Thoecracy does not mean "any religious intrusion into government or public policy of any kind."