Word: seculars
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...Easter Monday are national holidays like President’s Day. They looked at me in shock and then smirked as they politely informed me—knowing about my distrust of most things religious—that I was now living in a “real secular country” where religion plays no part in the state. This is one of America’s more admirable qualities, yet seems to be not quite the whole truth...
Noting these differences alone, America looks good: a pinnacle of secular, and a progressive and successful society. Religion, however, enters political discourse surprisingly often considering the treatment it gets in schools. There is no complaint back home about religion infiltrating politics. The only party that serves a cause higher than the voting population of South Africa, the African Christian Democratic Party, manages to win no more than a paltry six seats in a 450-seat legislature...
Compare this to any presidential campaign, policy debate, or national moral crisis in America. Presidents have to display their religion—not discreetly but openly. The leader of the secular country cannot be secular himself...
This religiosity of politics goes against everything a secular state is supposed to do. Foreigners often see America as a place where they do not have to subscribe to a set of beliefs. The truth is that by law you don’t have to follow a state religion or dogma, but you do still have to bear the consequences of living in a country where religion is often one of the driving forces behind policies that affect every citizen...
Under American standards I may come from a less than piously secular state, with Good Friday and Easter Monday off from work and prayer practiced in school. This is far from ideal, but to me it seems a good deal better than American secularism—where one works through religious days but is subject to laws inspired by biblical interpretations...