In the USA we are beginning our tedious process of electing a president- (every 4 years, beginning about 1 year after the previous election). Because the conservative party, the Republicans, is in disarray, they have put forth the largest group of candidates ever. Several of these are totally immersed in very conservative religious backgrounds..(Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson.... and various others pay various degrees of homage to religiously based political positions.
Our Constitution, on the face of it, is well-worded to allow freedom OF religion, while restricting/preventing "establishment" of any religion as a controlling influence in government.
The problem is, the various fundamentalist groups seem unable to grasp that concept, and continue to throw out phrases like "we are a Christian nation". They seem to **believe** that all would be better if that silly restriction in the Constitution were discarded... or at least ignored and circumvented. Their point seems to be (though never expresses quite explicitly) that 'freedom of religion' includes the right to insert the 'right' religion(s) into every facet of life... including prayer in schools, banning of 'immoral' practices (abortion, same-sex marriage... etc.)

   We have had one Catholic president, JFK, who explicitly promised NOT to insert his private religious beliefs into government, and now Obama, while maintaining a personal religious belief, has carefully avoided crossing the line the Constitution sets out.

There is little doubt that the Republicans I listed above would NOT restrain themselves, and would sign legislation put forth by a conservative Congress which would do what their religious beliefs suggest, while using all sorts of rhetorical devices to defend the practice in other ways. There have already been many clinics that include abortion as one service which have been closed without USING one word of religious language! Does anyone doubt that they would find similar language to attempt removing Roe v. Wade from the SCOTUS decisions?

Keith A. continues to promote "democracy" as the proper way to decide controversy, while ignoring the many ways that it can be distorted to restrict basic human rights and favor those who manipulate the system to insert their narrow set of beliefs. He says:
"That is up to the people of that democracy.
That is what democracy means."

No... that is not what democracy means. When 'majority rule' includes controlling who is allowed to vote and how the very language of what they are allowed to vote FOR is worded, then it is no longer democracy. In the USA, the last election was controlled by Gerrymandered districts, and produced more Gerrymandering. Several million more votes were cast for Democrats than Republicans, but many more Republicans were elected.

The UK has a fairly good system... but various people above have noted the problems inherent in it. The US has a similar situation as we try to steer a large & diverse nation in ways that are fair to all, but do not automatically favor any group. If church gets domination over state, fairness is endangered.