Introduction
The purpose of this article is first to explore theoretical views regarding the proper place of religion in democratic political life with an in-depth analysis of scholarly views, and then to examine the empirical Turkish case to find out how the picture appears with it on the subject. Proper place of religion in political life is the subject of a heated debate among scholars. While some recognize a broad space of action for it, some others argue that it must be fully separated from the political domain and remain a matter of private life. Scholars like John Locke, John Rawls, Robert Audi, and Kent Greenawalt argue almost in a common fashion that despite being socially functional, religion is a subjectivetruth whose prescriptions to be followed in public life cannot be maintained uniformly across its different versions and that it is often against the nature and assertions of religion to rule the material world.1 For them, the design of the public life according to particular religions alienates those who belong to other religions and could lead to massive human rights violations, but this can be prevented if the public life is shaped with norms and institutions agreed or agreeable by all the people. Accordingly, public reason, conclusions of science, generally accepted truths, common sense, etc., can serve as mechanisms to achieve this. However, another sizable group of scholars opposes this position by various arguments and explorations they submit. Theirs could be stated briefly as follows. First, attempts to find some methods and tools to produce public norms consented to by all people are futile because disagreement is a rule in human life rather than the exception, and the duty of democracy is not to suppress differences and disagreements to establish rational uniformities, but rather to regulate and tame them.2 Second, religion could legally take part in all aspects of public life as part of the freedom of religion and belief as a basic human right, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.3 Third, religion and politics are functional parts of a social system, providing vital services, and cannot be separated without consequences.4 Fourth, religion has been a democratizing agent in many cases, and its contributions in the process cannot be denied.5 And last, none of the contemporary democracies, except a few, attempt to separate the domains of religion and politics in practice, and many of them adopt sophisticated religious policies and legislation.6
