Religious hatred and religious relativism

Call me a free speech absolutist, but this seems like a bad idea to me. I’ve long been troubled by the tendency to make religion into one more marker for the purposes of identity politics. In this country, it tends to, ironically, be religious conservatives who increasingly cry “religious discrimination” when criticized. This is not to say that there’s no such thing as religious discrimination, but positions motivated by or rooted in religion are still fair game for criticism.

Moreover, religion itself has to be fair game for criticism, and even mockery and derision. Religion is not like race or ethnicity for at least two reasons. First, you can change your religion. But secondly, and more importantly, religions make truth and value claims, and in a free society those claims have to be open to public inspection and criticism.

The idea that religion is like race or ethnicity and therefore should be off limits from criticism actually buys into a kind of relativism, because it treats religion as nothing more than a part of one’s identity, rather than something that actually makes a public claim on others. For Christians in particular, the proclamation of the Gospel is a public event, calling its hearers to faith. Anything making those kinds of claims can’t be ruled immune from criticism by legislative fiat.