Exactly. And not only is religion a choice but it can be whatever the religious person chooses. Religion can be customized to one's liking no matter how ugly the likes may be. Take Joseph Smith for example . . .
You can believe whatever you want as long as, to use Jefferson's phrase, "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg". When your beliefs result in actions that harm other people, you get limits on your freedom, because you are infringing on other people's freedom.
When there are competing freedoms, compromises have to be made to maintain fairness and justice. Easy concept. Difficult implementation.
Everyone does have a right to choose their beliefs. That right needs protection.
Does everyone have a right to put their beliefs into practice?
Yes, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else or encroach on their rights.
If their beliefs include trespassing on my front porch and expecting me to listen to them preaching their beliefs, then my property rights trump their unwarented expectations.
What if your religion is farting. Your free to fart all you want in your home. If you go out you can't fart; or, you can pay a high tax to fart outside while everyone else does not have to pay such a tax. Why? because everyone else has to wear a face mask provided by the government payed by those taxes. Would you call that fair? I would.
To begin with, I do not often distinguish between religious beliefs and political beliefs, because every religion seems to be a political ideology. After all, they want to rule!
Ergo, political beliefs deserve protection if religious beliefs do. Save the commie! And the fascist!
To be clear, at least in most societies, it isn't the belief that is protected but the right to have a belief.
I and the collective we respect not the belief but the right to believe. There are all sorts of beliefs that I find absurd. Religion is one of those things I find absurd, however I find it equally absurd that anyone has an opinion about my penis, what I think of my penis, and how I like to make use of my penis.
Religion should have as much protection as race or gender? What does that even mean? Clayton's using this formulation to say the Colo baker should have been given a religious exemption for baking the cake. It's a non-sequitur. A baker can't discriminate on race or gender grounds; if it becomes unlawful to discriminate on religious grounds too, doesn't that mean that religion's already equal to race and gender?