What to do if a political party declares itself to be a religion

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jan 9, 2016 at 22:23

Dear Dr Pipes,

yes, Islam is a religion because it meets many of the accepted definitions of religions. But, by its own admission, Islam is also a way of life. It is a legal system. It also prescribes its own economic remedies. It also is a social system that tells you how to act, eat and dress. Whether we agree with all its prescriptions or not, we must admit that Islam can, indeed, function as a constitution of a nation because it does a lot of things that constitutions do. And, there in lies all the problem. While I can easily disagree with parts or whole of the US or Indian or French or Chinese constitution but I cannot disagree with the constitution called Islam. So you can create a country based on Islam but you cannot disagree with that country. What a contradiction!

Will we have to constitutionally protect a political party if it declares itself a religion? If communists had not decried God and had established a church, would we have been obligated to constitutionally protect communists?

Separation of church and state is not only good for the state, it is good for the church. Islam can be a fine religion if its followers stick to its five pillars in the privacy of their homes with quran providing general guidelines to the followers about how to conduct themselves in public. It is the burden of running the state that makes this religion look and act bad.

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