There are a couple of nations worldwide who try to impose the belief of the majority as rules to obey for all. If I look at those nations the USA are not in good company. In Germany, if somebody is sworn into office he or she is free to add a formula that expresses his or her faith. Everybody as (s)he wishes.

The majority argument by Doug is a red herring. Some things have to be decided by majority (or variants of that rule) for there can only be one single decision (who is president, for instance). Instances in which there has to be only one possible decision are rare, however.

Many things in our lives don't need majority rules and can and should be left to the individual (which hand to use for eating, whether women drive a car or not, which dish is admissible on Fridays, how a house has to be decorated on certain days, which is the correct way to slaughter an animal). All these examples are rules in one religion or the other, but I'd hate to live in a country which would prescribe what the majority does follow for all others too.

Tolerance is the word in this context. The USA of the late eighteenth century had a lot of it so it seems to me.

Wolfgang