Secular liberalism is a form of liberalism that involves liberating our culture from the elements of religious conservatism. Christian ideals are usually to be found on the opposite end of the spectrum from secular liberalism.[1]
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People who believe in secular liberalism believe in the disestablishment of the Church.[2] Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have prescribed to the theories of secular liberalism and adapted them to everyday living.[3] However, the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate are waging a common fight against secular liberalism; claiming that this idea violates the traditional Christian concepts of family and human values by exposing people to medico-biological experiments that are incompatible with their ideas of human dignity.[4] The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed concern over trends in some Protestant communities towards liberalizing theology and Christian morals; he claims them to be products of secular liberalism.[4]
Secular liberalism depends on the modernist conviction that neither religion nor tradition nor inherited loyalties has any binding authority on us.[5] It also continually labours under the misconception that everybody else is just a secular liberalist underneath.[6] Anything that denies equal freedom is to be condemned as oppressive and marginalized, even outlawed.[5] The so-called new atheists, such as Dawkins, call for religion to be abolished from education – or even for the teaching of religion to children to be illegal, even declared ‘child abuse’.[3] The same-sex marriage debate is inescapably about liberals trying to redefine marriage as primarily an expression of personal desire.[5] Conservatives find it hard to articulate a case for traditional marriage in terms acceptable in liberal rights discourse, as well as in the shallow rhetoric of contemporary debate.[5]
Traditionalists are on the losing side of this argument, at least in the short run, given the cultural conditioning of the American people in the 21st century.[5] Defending traditional marriage requires burrowing deep into the meaning of the human being, sex, gender, society and the law of a respective nation.[5] Still, it is instructive to ponder the fate of modern Western societies that have cast out the Biblical God as the source of moral reality.[5] Wrote eminent historian Paul Johnson, "The history of modern times is in great part the history of how that vacuum has been filled.[5] Elements in Islamic fundamentalism find that secular liberalism offers hedonism, sexual license, anomie, demoralization and gradual depopulation; elements that are neither wanted nor desired in a true Islamic community.[7]
However, Jeffrey Stout has written a book that embarks on an "alternate philosophical path" between the forces of secular liberalism and new traditionalism.[8] One of the things that traditionalists and liberalists have in common is the Hegelian element.[8] Stout also states in his book that democracy is a tradition in itself, instead of an impulse that destroys the national community.[8] Claims that theological reasons should be excluded is not a valid reason according to Stout.[8]
In France, secular liberalism has forced Muslim women to remove their face veils while in public.[9] This is due to a nationwide ban by the French Senate which passed on September 14, 2010.[9] More French Muslims have found secular liberalism to be an intolerant ideology where prejudice is used against a community in order to win votes.[9]" According to the Hizb ut-Tahrir group based out of the United Kingdom, women are then secluded from society and made outcasts in society for trying to be modest.[9] European countries have exposed the failure of a system based on secular liberalism to accommodate the rights of religious minorities.[9] The end result of making the traditional Muslim dress code for women into an illegal thing is forcing Muslim women to become disillusioned with secular liberalism.[9] As a result, they become closer to more conservative forms of thinking like that found in new traditionalism.
The wearing of the hijab in France has been a very controversial issue since 1989; when politicians with ideas of secular liberalism began to wonder whether Muslim girls should wear the hijab in state schools or not. Although traditional religious scriptures have taught Muslim women to cover their head, some Muslims don't believe that the veil derives from a Muslim religious imperative.[10]