Professor Smith thinks that I have committed a version of the Puritan mistake that I often warn others against. He does not say that I would protect only people who share my religious beliefs, but he does think that I have let my views on religion drive my views on religious liberty. Devout believers tend to think the religious side should win all the cases that are the least bit arguable; committed secularists tend to think the secular side should win all the cases that are the least bit arguable. I am a thoroughly secular agnos- tic who respects believers and bears them no ill will, and I think that both the religious and secular "sides" should win on some issues and lose on others.
More specifically, I think that government should be neutral toward religion and that this neutrality should extend even to government speech, so that government takes no position on religious questions. After finding my reasons for this position wanting, Professor Smith concludes that "Laycock thinks the First Amendment committed the government to the same sort of respectful, neutral agnosticism that he himself embraces." But, he says, this is not "an egregious failing," because it is inevitable that people's views on religion will drive their views on religious liberty.