American secularism is not a conspiracy against religion. It was an agreement among all the sane religions not to turn our new nation into a religious battleground. The colonists had left a continent drenched in the blood of religious intolerance. People like Jefferson wanted to prevent a war of each religion against all. The only way to do that was to prevent any religion from being privileged over the others.  When any religion tries to force it’s personal views upon everyone else, they violate the very sinew of this covenant of secularism.

Jesus sometimes summarized his teaching as just being a good neighbor, or simply treating others the way we would want to be treated. No one enjoys seeing an evangelist from another religion come up the side walk. We know we will be disrespected and have to listen to arguments based on a book we don’t believe. The Golden Rules says, if we would not like having our own worldview disrespected, then we must not disrespect someone else’s. In my opinion “secularism” is another name for Jesus’ call to be a good neighbor.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/16/5_people_who_bravely_fought_the_christian_takeover_of_america_salpart/