Thoughts in a Haystack

Secularism is not so much an attack upon the religious believers and institutions of modern society, as it is a defence of religious freedoms. ... [S]ecularism [is] a way to ensure that no religion is able to take over the social policy in a way that is detrimental to other religions. Catholics cannot be repressed or coerced by Protestants, nor Muslims and Hindus by Christians, and so forth, in a properly secular society. The cost, from the perspective of the religious believer, is that they must forego control of the social agenda themselves, and they must tolerate the nonreligious as much as they themselves are tolerated. They should do this, because it is in their own interests to do this, such "costs" notwithstanding.

- John Wilkins, "The role of secularism in protecting religion"