The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

Christopher Hitchens made this argument repeatedly in the mid‑2000s while writing and speaking as a prominent critic of religious authority in politics. In the post‑9/11 era—amid debates over political Islam, the U.S. “culture wars,” and renewed arguments for faith-based governance—Hitchens insisted that state neutrality toward religion is not hostility to belief but the precondition for peaceful coexistence among competing faiths and nonbelief. The line reflects his broader polemic that when the state endorses or enforces religion, it inevitably privileges one creed, marginalizes others, and turns theological disagreement into political coercion.

Hitchens calls it a “paradox” because secularism is often caricatured as anti-religious; he flips that assumption by claiming secular government is what makes genuine religious diversity possible. If the state refrains from declaring a favored doctrine, individuals and communities can practice, change, or reject religion without fear of legal penalty or civic exclusion. The “simplest and most elegant” truth, in his view, is that pluralism requires a neutral referee: a political order that protects freedom of conscience rather than adjudicating theological claims. The quote thus defends secularism as a framework for liberty, not a competing creed.