In Praise of Martyrdom

Abstract

I am pleased to welcome Professor Carter to the (unfortunately thin) ranks of skeptics about the entire project of defending the propriety of accommodations of religion.' There are, of course, some skeptics whose concerns arise from a quite general strict separationist view of the Constitution. But Professor Carter joins a different group, those with essentially theological rather than constitutional concerns about accommodations of religion. In this brief Response, I will elaborate somewhat on what I take to be the theological case against accommodation.2 We can begin by distinguishing between two kinds of concerns. The first is that accommodations are bad for religions, the second, that they operate in a domain that religion ought to understand as irrelevant to itself. The concern that accommodations are bad for religion rests largely on historical experience that demonstrates (to those who have this concern) that the State is not religion's friend,3 even when it superficially appears to be.4 I believe that the historical argument underlies much of the