Freedom from religion
When I listen to people talk about homeopathy or astrology, I usually just roll my eyes. I find those beliefs to be utter nonsense, but at the same time, it's none of my business what other people believe or don't believe. I think there's value in people having a vast array of different beliefs. It protects society against the dangers of groupthink, and freedom of thought is one of our most cherished freedoms. Someone could change their travel plans because of the way the planets are aligned, and it wouldn't bother me one bit, because it doesn't affect my life in any way.
There's been a lot of fear mongering about Sharia Law in the last year. I say fear mongering because all of the claims about Sharia Law being instituted anywhere in the U.S. were completely false. There's simply no evidence that the U.S. Constitution is under any type of threat from Islam. There's only one religion attempting to codify itself into U.S. law, and it's not Islam, and it's not Judaism.
My views on abortion are pretty simple. I believe in bodily autonomy, which is to say that government doesn't have the right to tell you what you can and can't do to your body. That includes, but is not limited to: abortion, sexual intercourse with a consenting adult, masturbation, birth control, drugs, end-of-life decisions, tattoos, and piercings. I don't think a fetus that can't survive outside its mother's body is a person, and I don't think it has any rights.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for religious people who think that abortion is murder. If you truly believe that abortion is a modern day Holocaust, then of course you would do anything, anything to try and stop it. But those beliefs about abortion are anchored in religious beliefs, and religious beliefs are generally unwavering. If religious people only applied their beliefs to their own lives, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But this election showed that a significant number of people are willing to take extreme risks with our democracy in order to change our laws to better reflect their religious views, and that does affect me. That puts religion on the table as a topic of debate, because for me to be able to win this argument about abortion, I essentially have to disprove their religion. I have to convince them that their religious views are inconsistent, illogical, and unnecessary. And I can make that case. I've given religion a lot of thought and I'm ready to make that case. I would have been perfectly happy to let people believe whatever they wanted to believe, but when people try to force their religious beliefs on society as a whole, what other choice do I have?