One does not have to travel far on the information superhighway (or the meatspace) to encounter this sentiment in relation to Christians in politics:
“Well, we can’t just force our morality on others.”
Yes, you can. Actually, that’s what the government is for. Every other domain of human interaction gives you the opportunity to promote your ideas and cajole others into accepting them, but the state is the only thing that can violently coerce them into playing along with any sort of legitimacy. Whether you think that the government derives its power purely from the consent of the elect or you believe in the divine right of kings, government exists in order to enforce moral codes. These moral codes all have histories and legacies of their own—some are explicitly derived from religion, others from less religious philosophy. Every law, no matter how small, has an underlying value that it promulgates and depends on.
Most people who say “we can’t just force our morality on others” probably think that the state can force someone to give up their money in order to feed or house someone else who is hungry or homeless. Or they think that the state can force its morality on a business owner who doesn’t want to perform certain actions for a customer. Sometimes political debates get framed as “religious morality” against “secular progress”, but secularism has its own convoluted moral system that privileges values like autonomy and preventing harm. One can argue that these values are superior to religiously derived values, but at the end of the day there are only a few values basic enough to human ethics that we can all agree on them (e.g. “don’t murder”). The rest of human governance is based on a hodgepodge of squishy moralistic impulses.
It is not easy to do politics in a nation like ours with conflicting values. John Inazu has written some good stuff about confident pluralism, which I think is our best course for now: expressing what we know, debating what we can prove, and building relationships of trust that foster good communication. I think the first step, though, is admitting that we disagree on what’s important, not that certain underlying values are somehow off limits. So go ahead: force your morals on somebody else. It might be good for us all.