His goal, he told me, was to convince secular Canadians to also oppose euthanasia and the only way he could be successful was if he could convince them that this was a not a religious cause. This man was a Christian but he was beginning to realize that his religious views had made him a second-class citizen in the pubic sphere. Worse, even though his own objections to euthanasia were inspired by his reading of the Gospels, he was willing to accept second-class status for what he saw as a greater cause.

I recently wrote two stories about social conservatives in Canada. The first stated that social conservatives were now officially voiceless in our political system. The story came on the heels of Stephen Harper saying his party would not institute a social conservative agenda if the Tories were given a majority.  The second was an opinion piece, outlining classic social conservative causes — concerning abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and the like — and how they could be revitalized to appeal to the broadest range of society.

The response to both stories went something like this: you cannot bring religious views into politics even if those views are posed in secular terms or even if the religious view might make sense. Anything that smacks of religion, the argument goes, has to be kept behind a fence — even though religious people pay taxes, work, vote and contribute to society as much as the non-religious.

There is a great confusion here. Basing a view on a religious belief is no different than basing it on a secular-belief system. Both are legitimate views of the world and in a democracy none should be excluded. I suspect that those freaked out by the religious point of view imagine a theocracy around the corner. But that makes as much sense as believing a secular view might lead to communist dictatorship.

But it is not the secular view under siege these days; it is the religious view. It has led to a form of intolerance that is not only unwarranted but also crippling to democracy.

In the past few years there has been a succession of anti-abortion groups removed from university campuses. Even more concerning is that the people doing the censoring were other students. These young student dictators had decided that to be anti-abortion was to hate women and therefore banning pro-life clubs was a way of removing prejudice off campus.

The logic is frightening and anyone with an ounce of concern for free speech should have been appalled. But hardly anyone was. That’s because the great liberal secular society we now live in suspects that these anti-abortion students are likely religious fanatics and so good riddance.

Of course, not everyone who is non-religious thinks like this but there are enough that we are drifting into intellectual eradication of those religious traditions that helped form the foundation of our civilization.

And so I have to wonder: What are so many people afraid of? Why is it so many people today need everyone to think the exact same way? When did this country become so intolerant?

(Charles Lewis writes about religion for the National Post and is the editor of the paper’s religion site, Holy Post.)