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What Role Should Religion Play in Government Policies? Essay

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Political Science 1020E
Professor Nigmendra Narain
Term 1 Essay: What role should religion play in government policies?

By Nivedita Sen Student Number: 250589199 Section – LEC 575 In today’s world, religion plays a profound part in many people’s lives and they find it important to firmly follow the guiding principles of a religion. Religion has been …show more content…

Morals are norms of behaviour that the society acknowledges. Religion sets rules and customs for its followers. These religious rules influence the legislative system. If religion plays a role in government policies, it would also influence laws. For example, religious beliefs and morals influence abortion laws in many parts of the world. It is still looked upon as morally wrong on the basis of religious ideas to undergo an abortion procedure. Phillip Montague points that “legal and political debate and decision making should be governed by standard criteria for assessing reasons and reasoning, and when religious considerations fail to satisfy such criteria, they should not be allowed to influence matters of law and public policy” (Montague 17). He further states that these matters consist of abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia along with numerous subjects of social justice such as welfare policies. Montague claims that in comparison with secular reasons, “religious reasons fail by a wide margin to deal adequately with the complexity of such issues” (Montague 17). For instance, a person who argues that homosexuality is morally wrong for the reason that it opposes the divine law would be referring to religious grounds to support his argument and not secular. Individuals should not be arguing for restrictive laws or policies if they do not have secular grounds to support them. They should only put across views that are

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