Catholic ping!
Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Joshua’s statement of Judeo-Christian Libertarianism is the basis for all free societies.
The false assumption in the presentation of the problem is that government/the state should be so big as to be a major factor in the presence or absence of a religion. When the state controls health care, and adoptions and education and my very food, then the presence or absence of religion in the state is very important. But if the state does not control my health care, children, education or food, then it is quite irrelevant what the state does.
And when a local government leans a direction I don’t want and puts the wrong decoration on the village hall, I can always vote with my feet to move to the next village. But when the central government imposes one-size-fits-all on festive decorations, then democracy is destroyed. Namely I have been disenfranchised and no longer am able to vote with my feet.
Gays are a good example. When government did not control spousal benefits and taxes are so low it does not matter one’s marital relationship, then Gays could not care less about marriage. But when government became pervasive in every phase of life with recognizing marriage for all types of benefits and tax quirks, then Gays became motivated to demand equal treatment by the government.