The Protestant bias of the American public sphere has mellowed over time, but it still depends on “Christian secularism,” said Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, a political scientist at Northwestern University. This is a “political stance” premised on a “chiefly Protestant notion of religion understood as private assent to a set of propositional beliefs,” she told me. Other traditions, such as Judaism and Islam and to some degree Catholicism, do not frame faith in such rationalist terms, or accept the same distinction between internal conviction and public argument.
via www.nytimes.com
"Professor Hurd works at the intersection of international politics, legal studies and religious studies. She is currently writing a book on the legal and administrative regulation of religion in global and transnational politics. Central themes include the politics of international human rights, global governance, legal and religious pluralism, and the international legal construction and regulation of religious freedom." {from faculty profile}