That’s a terrific post. I have a quick question, though, about An-Na`im’s endorsement of public reason.

You articulate five reasons that putatively count in favor of a secular state, the last of which is that “A constitutional regime is one where religious people may advocate policies out of their religious convictions as long as they do so through secular language and arguments.” This seems to imply that commitment to public reason serves as a reason to affirm secularism. But I’d think that the content of your fifth argument is really An-Na`im’s interpretation of what commitment to a secular state means: it serves not as a premise in an argument but as a partial explication of the conclusion of his argument.

If that’s true, then I wonder: how central is An-Na`im’s commitment to public reason (or secularism if he cashes secularism out in terms of public reason)? What would be the implications for his position were he to jettison his commitment to public reason and fall in line with Stout, Perry and Taylor? It seems that it might be an unnecessary add-on: he provides four reasons to affirm liberalism (understood as a political system that effectively protects certain basic human rights), but he doesn’t need to associate liberalism with either secularism or public reason.