In a liberal, religiously pluralistic country like the United States, what role should religion play in public bioethics? In particular, how should a public commission, like the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), address the concerns of people of faith? Can NBAC consider religious positions in identifying, developing, and justifying its policy recommendations, or do the First Amendment protections of freedom of religion preclude consideration of religious belief in public policy development?

The broad question of the appropriate role for religion in law and public policy has generated significant litigation¹ and much literature.² Here I focus on one aspect of this question: What role should religion play in the formation of public policy based upon explicitly moral values?

I will begin by considering whether the First Amendment protections of freedom of religion allow the explicit participation of religion in the formation of public bioethics policy. I will argue that they do. However, just because it is constitutional to do something does not mean that the government should do it. Therefore, I will then consider arguments that religious participation in bioethics policymaking is uniquely dangerous and should be discouraged. Finally, I will counter by advocating the engagement of religious voices in public policy debate. In short, I will argue that the inclusion of religious voices in the formation of public policy is not only constitutionally allowed but something to be encouraged.

THE PROBLEM
A 1995 presidential executive order³ established the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to examine "bioethical issues" and develop "broad principles" for use in guiding the development of public policy on these issues. While the quoted terms were not defined in the presidential order creating the commission or in the NBAC charter,⁴ which expired October 3, 2001, the commission in practice interpreted its mandate to mean developing policy recommendations in accord with the moral norms of our society at large. In particular, the commission sought testimony from a wide range of experts and scholars familiar with the issues and the values that should be considered in their recommendations.⁵

Religious faith, commonly recognized as a source of moral norms, is a powerful social force in the United States. Over 90 percent of Americans express a belief in God,⁶ and approximately ⁶⁷ percent identify with the traditional threesome: Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, and Judaism.⁷ For many people in the United States, religion and morality are inseparable. In one survey, over 90 percent of the members of Congress said they consulted their religious beliefs before voting on important matters.⁸ Over 60 percent of Americans believe that having strong values begins with a belief in God and answering to a higher power, with over 80 percent taking guidance in living their own lives from the Bible. ⁹

In light of these statistics, any legitimate effort to identify the moral norms of the American people must consider what religion has to say. Thus, in its consideration of the ethical and legal issues that surround human cloning, NBAC solicited in particular the testimony of religious scholars and representatives.¹⁰ The commission was severely criticized both for soliciting religious testimony¹¹ and for the way it used the testimony.¹² Much of the opposition to soliciting religious opinion reflected misperceptions and ignorance of religious argument and thought. As Courtney Campbell put it, "Otherwise very intelligent people can say some very stupid things about religion."¹³ Many have adopted the tactics of Richard Rorty who argues that, even where it may not be prohibited, people who bring up religion in public should be made to feel that it is "in bad taste."¹⁴

Many people were concerned that engaging people of faith in the NBAC process violated our long history of church-state separation-a misnomer for religious freedom and nonestablishment. They, in line with numerous theorists, questioned the constitutionality and legitimacy of a governmental commission's use of religious arguments to justify state action.¹⁵

THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
The First Amendment to the Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [the Establishment Clause] or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [the Free Exercise Clause]." Discerning the meaning of these deceptively simple provisions of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court is notoriously difficult. Interpretations range between two extremes. Some argue that the Constitution requires that the government maintain strict separation between religion and the state-where religion is to be a private matter totally separate from public concern or attention.¹⁶ Others argue that the protection of religious freedom demands a more generous policy of religious accommodation if not outright encouragement.¹⁷ Both sides do agree, however, that the Court's interpretations of First Amendment demands are generally "irrational" and "intellectually incoherent."¹⁸ As a result, with Court decisions on the First Amendment one is left to speculate as to the Court's intentions based upon the best arguments at hand.

In attempting to address the constitutionality of religious participation in policy formation by NBAC and other public commissions, three questions must be answered. First, what principle should be used to set the standard for constitutional behavior? Second, how does that principle apply to the rights of the individual under the Free Exercise Clause? And third, does the proposed practice violate the prohibition against the establishment of religion?

Governmental Neutrality
Many people confuse First Amendment protection of religious freedom with the unfortunate metaphor, "wall of separation between Church and State," penned by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists ten years after the drafting and ratification of the First Amendment.¹⁹ While the Supreme Court has used this metaphor in a number of its opinions,²⁰ the metaphor is misleading. It suggests a much more rigorous separation between religion and the state than the courts have ever held necessary-or even possible.²¹ As acknowledged by Justice Brennan, "The fact is that the line which separates the secular from the sectarian in American life is elusive."²²

While using metaphors like "wall of separation" and "line between" religion and the state, the Court generally, though not always consistently, applies a neutrality standard: the state may not discriminate between particular religions or between religion and nonreligion.²³ The state may not act in any way that would favor or disfavor religion as opposed to nonreligion.²⁴

In applying a neutrality standard, there are four areas of concern under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the Constitution. First, how does the standard apply to the individual as a participant in policymaking? Second, how does it apply to the state's consideration of religious arguments and justifications? Third, to what extent is an individual's right to free exercise of his religious belief affected by a policy that rests, at least in part, on religious justifications? Finally, to what extent may the government acknowledge religious values as justification for its policies?

Individual Participation
It is generally acknowledged that the government may not discriminate against the individual in the exercise of her political rights, or use religious identity or affiliation to bar her participation in the public arena. As Justice William Brennan wrote, "Religionists no less than members of any other group enjoy the full measure of protection afforded speech, association, and political activity generally. The establishment clause . . . may not be used as a sword to justify repression of religion or its adherents from any aspect of public life."²⁵ People of faith have the same right to express their opinions and participate in public benefits as their nonreligious counterparts.²⁶

State Use of Religious Justification
There is, of course, a distinction between what a citizen may do and what the state may do. Obviously, an individual may act on or advocate a public position based upon his particular beliefs, whether they are religiously grounded or not. However, the state may not adopt a specific religious view or use it as the basis for governmental action. But does that mean that it may not rely upon or justify its actions on religious grounds at all?

On first reading, it would appear that the state may not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that state action must be justified by a secular legislative intent or purpose.²⁷ To support this position, the Court has gone so far as to discover secular intent for actions clearly motivated by religious interests-such as Sunday Closing laws²⁸ and the display of religious symbols on public property²⁹-and discover religious intent in laws for which the affected legislature offered secular rationales.³⁰

On a second reading, the Court's interpretations do not make sense. In adopting the secular justification standard, the Court presupposes that the secular is a religiously neutral concept. As articulated by its intellectual supporters,³¹ secular reason, which John Rawls refers to as public reason, is interpreted as providing neutral ground for political engagement. Arguments and justifications for state actions using secular reason are, they claim, accessible to any reasonable person and do not rely upon religious traditions or beliefs. Such an argument offers a forum and form of dialogue equally accessible to the religious and nonreligious person.

Critics, on the other hand, argue that favoring secular reason inherently discriminates against religion. As Michael McConnell puts it, "In the marketplace of ideas, secular viewpoints and ideologies are in competition with religious viewpoints and ideologies. It is no more neutral to favor the secular over the religious than it is to favor the religious over the secular."³²

The problem is that "religious" and "secular" are not well defined. Whereas the Court generally treats religion and the secular as dichotomous, almost unrelated categories, critics like McConnell recognize the two as closely related concepts. Moreover, the Court itself is, in certain tough cases, forced to recognize the difficulty in distinguishing between the two.³³

The Supreme Court has generally avoided defining exactly what it means when it uses the term "religion." In many ways, as in the comparison suggested by Richard McBrien, the Court has looked at religion much as it looks at pornography: "It's very difficult to define, but you're supposed to know it when you see it."³⁴

William James argued that the attempt to define religion is futile. "The word 'religion' cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name."³⁵ Indeed, some argue that the attempt to define religion potentially infringes religious freedom-placing a limitation upon those "religions" that do not conform to that definition.³⁶ Moreover, when lower courts have alluded to the meaning of religion or, at least in one case at the appellate level, attempted to define religion,³⁷ one finds that the description used largely conforms to a description of Judeo-Christian traditions.

When forced to define religion, so as to avoid discriminating against standards of equal protection for all citizens, the Supreme Court has adopted a broad definition that essentially identifies religion as any worldview that serves the function of religion for the person of faith.³⁸ Justice Black, in his famous dicta, recognized atheism and secular humanism as forms of religious association.³⁹ This broad understanding also conforms to the practices of the Internal Revenue Service, which recognizes the religious tax exempt status of groups such as Scientology, atheism, and the Ethical Culture Society.⁴⁰

This definition has merit in that it highlights the often-unappreciated commonality between religion and the other worldviews that we use to make moral and legal judgments.⁴¹ Ultimately, all worldviews rest upon certain unprovable assumptions.⁴² The foundational assumptions of religious worldviews may be identified with beliefs about the transcendent or ultimate reality. Philosophically or empirically based worldviews rest upon certain assumptions about the nature of the world, e.g., utilitarianism's assumption that happiness is an absolute good, or the assumption of empiricism that the world is a closed reality in which cause and effect can be determined by observation. Each worldview is ultimately unprovable. What distinguishes these worldviews is that most people view religious worldviews as resting upon belief, whereas secular worldviews are commonly treated as resting upon truth or fact.⁴³ Most people fail to recognize their commonality.

Clearly, to avoid favoring religion or favoring one religion over another, the state, as represented by NBAC and other such commissions, cannot justify a decision by relying solely upon one religious tradition-or by relying solely upon traditional religions. At the same time, this broader understanding argues against relying solely upon isolated secular justifications not shared by religious traditions. To do so would violate the neutrality standard.

State Regulation of Morality
Does acknowledging the "religious" character of both secular and traditional religious beliefs mean that applying a policy justified by any worldview infringes upon the individual's free exercise right? As a practical matter, the answer is "no." The courts have long acknowledged the right of the state to regulate behavior-even where that behavior may have its roots in traditional religion.⁴⁴ Moreover, the right of free exercise is not an absolute right. It does not privilege behavior that violates a legitimate state interest.⁴⁵

To avoid conflict between moral/religious belief and public policy, some scholars attempt to define moral behavior as a strictly private concern, not involving a state interest. There are liberal theorists who appear to argue that all moral judgments are fundamentally private. So long as a proposed action does not harm another person, deciding whether or not to act should be left up to the individual.⁴⁶ This view has never been widely accepted. The law regularly intervenes to regulate behavior on the basis of moral concerns.⁴⁷ Moreover, drawing the line between the public and the private is difficult and issue specific. For example, in the abortion debates, pro-choice activists argue that abortion is a private moral decision to be made by the woman. Pro-life activists stress that it is a public concern affecting the rights of the unborn. The Supreme Court holds that it is both-with the unfortunate consequence of provoking an ongoing war of legislation and litigation. While asserting that the decision to have an abortion is fundamentally a private, nonpolitical issue, the Court has simultaneously recognized that the state has a legitimate interest in regulating certain ill-defined aspects of pregnancy termination.⁴⁸

Trying to redefine the abortion controversy as a religious dispute doesn't help. It is not sectarian in the sense of being limited to a conflict among particular types of religious worldviews. While the right-to-life movement is commonly identified with the religious right and Roman Catholicism, it also includes people who are not affiliated with traditional religions. Moreover, many people of faith support choice. The issue is disputed on a variety of grounds, only some of which are traditionally religious.

Justifying Policy Decisions
Once the state has determined that an issue is of public or political concern and therefore subject to state regulation, it has to offer reasons to justify its decision. Laws are routinely reviewed to determine whether they represent the widely accepted norms of society or are attempts to advance the interests of special groups.⁴⁹ This is particularly true where the law restricts individual freedom.⁵⁰

Where religion is involved, the Court has traditionally relied upon the requirement of secular justification for the law. The assumption has been that secular justification is a neutral term with respect to religion. However, as suggested above, this term favors worldviews that are indistinguishable from religious worldviews. While the goal of secular justification attempts to avoid favoring sectarian interests, the tactic does not succeed.

Instead, the state needs to broaden its perspective. In the words of John Rawls, the state must seek to identify the appropriate norms of society on the basis of an "overlapping consensus" within society at large.⁵¹ In arguing about physician-assisted suicide (PAS), for example, a Marxist might argue that it should be prohibited because, in a capitalist society, it will inevitably be used against the proletariat, where the life in question will be weighed against the cost to society. A feminist might argue that it discriminates against women who are most likely to feel compelled to save their families the cost of expensive health care. A Catholic, in turn, may cite the sanctity of life and the doctrine that committing suicide is a mortal sin. All of these critics of PAS may agree that PAS should be prohibited, yet they justify their decision on different grounds.

Advocates of secular rationale or public reason assume that these divergent justifications can be translated into a neutral language, that common principles can be abstracted from these arguments and expressed in secular language acceptable to all involved.⁵² Religious critics deny this. They point out that this process of translation favors those worldviews that find secular justifications persuasive and discriminates against people of faith. Many feminists feel discriminated against by the grammatical rule that a pronoun with a gender-neutral singular antecedent should be written in the masculine form; hiding the religious justification for a policy has a similar effect. The action implies that religious justification is not legitimate.

The state, clearly, should not adopt exclusively religious justifications for its actions. Sectarian preference would discriminate against other worldviews and would simply reverse the pattern of discrimination currently practiced under the secular rationale. Instead, the state should offer the widest possible range of justifications for its decisions, including both religious and nonreligious arguments, explaining, where possible, how these arguments relate. Ronald Dworkin provides an example of this approach in Life's Dominion.⁵³ He addresses the controversy over abortion by drawing attention to the commonality between religious and nonreligious understandings of the sacredness of life. He first acknowledges that each understanding is grounded in different sources and then advances an argument based upon how the two overlap. Whether he succeeds in his argument is less important for my purposes here than the fact that he illustrates how such an argument can be constructed in a way that is respectful to all involved.

ARGUMENTS FOR LIMITING TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS IN PUBLIC POLICY
As we have seen, the common distinctions between religion, the secular, and the public or private are inadequate to justify restricting religious participation in the formulation of public policy. The state should be able to use the reasons offered by people of faith in the same way that it uses the reasons offered by traditional secularists. While the state may not adopt the justifications offered by a single tradition-whether religious or secular-because that would favor one tradition over all others, it can and should justify its actions based upon the norms and overlapping justifications among worldviews.

Many critics argue, however, that unlike other worldviews or ideologies, religion is inherently dangerous, threatening the stability and function of the public realm. Robert Audi, for example, in articulating many of the following arguments, is even more precise. He argues that it may be appropriate to discriminate among religions and that traditional, theistic religions present a dangerous threat to society that other, nontheistic religions might not.⁵⁴ For Audi, in the face of this threat, excluding theistic religion from the public domain is an act of political morality. Since many such suspicions have been cited by the Courts,⁵⁵ they need to be addressed.

Violence
First, many secularists argue that the purpose of church-state separation was to avoid the violence of religiously inspired conflict. They cite the historic religious wars and their current manifestations in areas such as Afghanistan, the Middle East, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland. In this country, they cite the violence surrounding abortion and the radical right-to-life movement.

This analogy is flawed in two ways. First, religion is often used to justify violence and is frequently associated with the adversaries in that conflict; however, that does not mean religion is the source of the violence on all occasions.⁵⁶ The conflicts in Northern Ireland and Bosnia are more accurately described as civil wars grounded in history, nationalism, and ethnic conflict in which the antagonists are identified with particular religious traditions, rather than wars over religious belief. As one commentator put it, the "conflict in Northern Ireland is not about transubstantiation."⁵⁷

Second, the allegation that religion presents a greater threat of violence than secular ideology ignores modern history. The Stalinist purges of the 1930s, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the killing fields of Cambodia were motivated not by religion but by secular ideologies. Even the Nazi Holocaust, while drawing upon the appalling tradition of Christian anti-Semitism, was framed as an effort toward racial purity and was applied also to Gypsies, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, and Ukrainians.

If we turn to this country, the violence associated with abortion may be an example of religious violence. However, many examples of secularly inspired violence can be cited as well: Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, and the Symbionese Liberation Army were all sources of ideologically inspired violence in the recent past. Again, religion is not unique as a source of violence.

Authoritarianism
One of the critics of the NBAC engagement with religious representatives complained that the sole task of religion is "theological hermeneutics-the interpretation of sacred texts . . . [Religion] abolish[es] the hard ethical [questions]" because the answers are to be found in the texts of revelation.⁵⁸ This statement reflects a profound ignorance about how religious ethicists do their work. While it is true that they may use religious texts as a primary, if not exclusive, source for their reflection, these texts rarely provide simple, authoritative answers, and not all religions have clearly codified texts. People of faith struggle to discern how the values in a text apply to a given situation. In this discernment, they use the same methods that secular ethicists use-techniques of philosophical ethics, narrative ethics, and the like.

What is different is how the starting point is viewed. Because many people of faith derive their values from received authority, those values are perceived as resting solely upon unsupported belief. Yet how is that different from the fundamental values of secular ethics? In attempting to explain the source of the values supporting the pro-choice movement, Ronald Dworkin suggests that they derive from a secular belief in the "sacredness" of life. Whether grounded in philosophy or intuition, this secular sacredness has power simply by virtue of its acceptance by many individuals as grounds upon which to act and understand their lives.

Inaccessibility
Related to the issue of authority, many critics argue that religious arguments are inaccessible to nonbelievers. The nonreligious person does not have sufficient information to evaluate and understand the arguments being made by the faithful. Insofar as governmental action should rest upon arguments that are acceptable and understandable by those who are subject to them, then a justification based upon religious faith would not satisfy this requirement. This critique rests upon three errors.

First, it mistakes disbelief in the authority grounding a value for a person's inability to understand that authority. One may understand the grounding authority without believing in it. This applies to both the faithful and those without faith. Neither group may believe in the authority relied upon by the other, but each group understands how the other uses it as grounding for ethical judgment.

Second, this critique ignores the difference between a person's grounding belief-for example, in God or in dialectic materialism-and the principle or symbol used to express that belief at a high level of generality.⁵⁹ For example, a person of faith may address the issue of cloning by drawing upon the biblical vision of a humanity created "in the image of God."⁶⁰ A nonbeliever does not have to believe in divine creation or worship to recognize that this symbol demands a profound respect for each human being.

Finally, the accessibility critique mistakes consensus on basic authority for consensus on practical application. The real question is whether or not people can understand how the policy was developed by drawing upon the variety of perspectives brought to bear on it. The grounding authorities will be different. The political process of reaching consensus, however, will be democratic (i.e., involving the participation of all parties), and the policy adopted by the state should be explained according to all of the diverse justifications offered on its behalf.

Again, the argument from inaccessibility is not uniquely applicable to religion. For people of faith, the grounding beliefs of those without faith may be comparably inaccessible.

Barrier to Consensus
A more serious version of the accessibility critique is that the use of religious argument precludes public discussion and prevents political consensus. Michael Perry adopts this argument when he argues that people of faith should be prepared to offer secular reasons for their judgments without imposing a similar requirement on people having no faith.⁶¹ He argues that because they do not believe, nonbelievers cannot be expected to offer religious reasons for their positions.⁶² Perry's argument is unfair to the faithful, treating their religious worldview differently from the secular worldview of others; Perry also precludes public participation by those individuals unable or unwilling to "translate" their religious insights into secular terms. The overall argument that religion prevents public discussion fails for two reasons.

First, this critique fails to appreciate the nature of public religious argument and the possibility that the faithful and those having no faith can engage in meaningful dialogue. It is true that some of the faithful leap simply from grounding belief to conclusion, e.g., "God said this, therefore cloning is wrong." The same could be said, however, of some people having no faith, e.g., for some ideological pro-choice activists: "I'm a woman, therefore I have a right to decide about having an abortion." The better forms of religious argument not only assert a grounding belief, but also develop arguments to explain how that belief results in the judgment made in a particular situation.⁶³ The nonbeliever does not need to accept the grounding belief in order to enter into the argument of the believer. The same rules of logic, coherence, and consistency apply to religious and nonreligious argument. Often, the person of faith will justify his argument by drawing upon illustrative examples and intermediary arguments that a person without faith can also use because the justifications are compatible with her own worldview and beliefs.

Second, this critique assumes that to resolve a policy dispute, people of faith and people of secular beliefs need to reach consensus upon a single justification for that policy. However, it is unlikely that anyone will alter his fundamental worldview to reach a political policy judgment. Flexibility and compromise rest not at the level of fundamental belief but at the level of judgment about how those beliefs find expression in a particular situation. Therefore, the formation of public policy can result from a collection of overlapping but discrete public conversations addressed to particular audiences within the whole. The objective is consensus on a particular policy that may rest upon a pluralistically acceptable range of justifications.

Idiosyncrasy
One rationale supporting the demand for secular justification is the assumption that secular reasoning is neutral-that it is shared by all members of society. Religion, on the other hand, is deemed distinctly idiosyncratic, unique to each believer and/or to her tradition. However, as pointed out above, secular reason is not neutral. It reflects, to a large extent, the worldview of a particular group of people, with a tradition that is varyingly based in religion. Consequently, the objective in policy formation should not be the identification of shared worldviews or justifications, but the identification of shared practices compatible with a variety of worldviews.

Divisiveness
Many people believe that religion is uniquely divisive. It evokes passion and emotion as well as reason and judgment.⁶⁴ As acknowledged by Michael McConnell, "in the current political climate, many of the most heated political controversies involve a clash between largely religious forces of cultural traditionalism and largely secular forces of cultural deconstruction. It would be difficult to say which side in these conflicts was more strident, more intolerant, or more absolutist."⁶⁵

Passionate disagreement is a part of American history and the political process. And it has been a feature of American governance from the Revolutionary War and the conflict between Loyalists and the Revolutionaries, through the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, the early labor movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam-era peace movement. While religion was present in some of these conflicts, it was not in others.

Restricting religious participation will not end the reality that people of conviction bring their passion to the political arena. Moreover, the effort to secularize the public sphere has alienated many people. As Stephen Carter and others have argued,⁶⁶ the perceived antagonism toward religion and the resulting alienation has energized the so-called religious right. "Nothing creates political energy quite so well as insults, and nothing makes [members of the religious right] harder to slow than the ignorance of their critics."67

Political Factions
The founders of the American republic feared political factions as one of the great threats to stable government. A "zeal for different opinions concerning religion" was Madison's first example in Federalist Paper No. 10 of the causes of factions.⁶⁸ However, Madison recognized that religion was only one of many sources of political faction.

The faction argument is, essentially, the political extension of the divisiveness argument. Religion is not only a potential source of passionate conflict, but also a unifying force giving that conflict political power. It is not just that religion has the power to divide individuals; it may lead to political conflict between religious groups.

The response of the secularists has been an attempt to repress religion, to find a single common belief (i.e., secular) system that all citizens can share. As evident from the reactions of the religious right, this effort is doomed to failure. Madison recognized this and rejected such efforts as "impractical," if not impossible.⁶⁹ Instead, he argued, stability is better served by seeking to control the effects of factions. "His solution was not to keep any such factions 'out of politics,' but to extend the sphere of the Union to ensure that there would be such a multiplicity of sects and factions that none would be able to suppress the others."⁷⁰

REASONS TO INCLUDE RELIGIOUS VOICES
As I hope I have demonstrated, those who seek to exclude traditional religious perspectives from public debate and policy creation unfairly discriminate against religion. The criticisms leveled at religion apply with equal force to secular worldviews. Excluding religious justifications is both discriminatory and divisive. On the flip side, there is much gained by encouraging religious participation.

Historical Resources
Religions embody historical traditions of thought and reflection upon the human condition. They reflect the experiences of the members of their communities, who try to live up to the demands of their faith and their values. While religions may include folly and prejudice in their doctrines and dogma, they also contain much wisdom, and they meet the needs of their followers. Thus they continue to survive. Moreover, the successes and failures of the efforts of these religious communities of faith can be instructive for our contemporary efforts to grapple with the problems we face.

Combating Religious Ignorance In a pluralistic world each citizen must strive to be sensitive to the values of others. Just as we promote education about issues of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, so too we should promote education about religious diversity. Due to the great effort to silence religion and secularize the public space, most people do not appreciate the richness and diversity of the religious traditions. Many otherwise educated people assume that religion is monolithic and that it all speaks in the voice of the fundamentalists and members of the religious right. They do not appreciate the multivocal quality of religion and the diversity even within individual traditions. Since the religious right is the only group willing to stand up against the repressiveness of the secularist mandate, theirs is the only voice that most people hear. It is only when all religious perspectives are welcomed to the public discussion and considered seriously in the formation of public policy that this ignorance will be overcome.

Challenging Assumptions of Neutrality
Including a diversity of religious voices in the formulation and discussion of public policy may reveal the hidden religious bias within the norms of society at large. In Goldman v Weinberger⁷¹ a Jewish captain challenged the military dress code regulations that denied him the right to wear a yarmulke. While the Court denied Captain Goldman's complaint, Justice Brennan pointed out in his dissent that the dress code, which the other justices accepted as religiously neutral, was in fact biased. It accommodated the types of religious wear common among Christians, while precluding variations that would accommodate other religious tradition. This historical religious bias will change only as diverse religious voices become engaged in the public realm and grow free to criticize bias that members of the current dominant majority fail to see.

Communities of Resistance
In justifying the call for people of faith to participate in the NBAC hearings, James Childress pointed out that religious communities were not only the primary source of values for many people in America, but also potentially the strongest source of resistance to contentious policies.⁷² Interestingly, the concept of communities of resistance has two possible meanings and consequences. First, as I read Childress, the potential for resistance acts as a check on the unfettered exercise of power. Public policy that does not take into consideration the concerns of the faithful risks sowing the seeds of future strife and conflict. While allowing people of faith to participate in policy formation may not preclude resistance to contentious policies, their tendency to resist will be exacerbated if they or any other group are not allowed even a fair hearing and consideration of their views.⁷³

"Communities of resistance," however, is also a term of approbation for religious communities.⁷⁴ Given their historic continuity with long standing traditions and values, at their best the religious traditions may stand outside-in resistance to-the fluid ebb and flow of popular politics. Hence, the arguments that they offer grow out of a unique history of lived experience. They may challenge us to examine a particular policy in a broader, more historical perspective than arises in the normal course of contemporary political discussion. This is not to say that policy must conform to a religious argument, but rather that the policy may need to be justified so as to answer the objections or concerns of the religious argument. Obviously, the religious argument cannot be answered unless people of faith are encouraged to offer it within the public domain for consideration.

An Open Democracy
The public policies being discussed by bioethicists and NBAC are, at their heart, religious questions: What does it mean to be human? When does life begin and end? What is the place of human agency within the web of creation? While these questions may be answered without reliance upon sacred texts or theistic belief, they are nonetheless questions about ultimate beliefs and values. In order to answer these questions and to articulate the values held by the American people, it is necessary to engage people of faith without imposing secularizing barriers to their participation.

Involving the faithful in the formulation and development of public policy does not violate the spirit of church-state separation, as many fear. Rather, it represents a fulfillment of democratic and liberal promises. Religion is as complex and fallible as any other system of human values and beliefs. As expressed by Michael Walzer, "religion is a mixed bag, exactly like secular ideology."⁷⁵ To the extent that democracy and liberalism promise to respect each and every citizen, allowing them the full right to participate in the public forum, people of faith should not be excluded simply because they may disagree with the values of those controlling access to that forum. It is the task of democratic politics to find ways to accommodate the wide diversity within our pluralistic society.

NOTES
1. See, e.g., Everson v Board of Education, 330 US 1 (1947); Lemon v Kurtzman, 403 US 602 (1971); McGowan v Maryland, 366 US 420 (1961); Agostini v Felton, 521 US 203 (1997).