The Secularist Perspective:

The secularist perspective is that the state should be kept distant from religion and that, in the same vein, the religious institutions should also be free from any governmental interferences. This follows the second aspect of the Doctrine of the Separation of Church and State that dictates that there should be no entanglement between the Church and the State.

In this perspective, the government is prohibited from citing the authority or influence of a specific religious institution for the justification of its authority. While there are some governments that claim religious justifications for their powers such as the Muslim states, the justification for such is based on the emphasis of the relationship for ceremonial and rhetorical purposes only.

The acts done by the government are not meant to further the cause of any single religion but are actually for the general welfare and the benefit of the state. The state therefore does not conform to any particular religious doctrine but in fact caters to its own doctrine as mandated by the will of the people and of the Constitution. Acts such as exemptions from taxation or providing funds for education and charities, though viewed as supporting religion, are in fact welfare based or “faith based” according to secularists. This reflects the view that temporal authority and spiritual authority should properly operate in complimentary spheres. The spheres where they overlap such as in moral values or property rights are areas where neither should take authority over the other but should instead offer a framework in which society can work these issues out without subjugating a religion to the state or vice versa.