An interview with Prof. Steven Smith

Here is an interesting interview with Prof. Steven Smith (San Diego) -- in my view, one of the most important and insightful law-and-religion scholars working -- about his new book and about the "fate of American religious liberty."  (Especially as it becomes increasingly common for people to tendentiously dismiss concerns about religious liberty as "bigotry" or "dog whistles.") Here's a bit:

In Rise and Decline I suggest that our contemporary approach to religious pluralism might accurately be characterized as one of denial (or self-deception). We intone, over and over again, that government must be “neutral” toward all religions. And then we desperately try to ignore or obfuscate the fact that in cases of genuine conflict, there simply is no meaningfully neutral position. In this vein, a pervasive strategy is to criticize your opponent’s position for departing from neutrality (as it will, inevitably) while distracting attention (other people’s and your own) away from the fact that your own position is equally a departure from neutrality. There are various techniques for accomplishing this. But the language of “imposing values on others” is one very common (and often rhetorically effective) way of practicing this sort of deception or self-deception.