Recently, Joe Biden said he would veto a national ban on abortion, which has reignited the perennial discussion on his alleged Catholic faith. Biden has long claimed to be Catholic, but he obviously stands in grave opposition to a key teaching of the church on abortion. I’m not really interested in Biden’s personal faith, but I always get annoyed with the various talking points that inevitably spring up in any discussion regarding Biden and abortion.

The worst points Biden defenders bring up are related to the separation of church and state. I want to talk about their arguments to explain why there isn’t any real reason to take those saying these things seriously.

People often say that Biden is personally Catholic, bound by and in agreement with the teachings of the faith, but he supports “religious freedom,” so he doesn’t impose his view on others. A lot of people on the left find this position appealing at a glance. Of course, in a multicultural democracy, one religion shouldn’t restrict everyone, they reason. This is where people often invoke the separation of church and state – in their view, Biden’s refusal to publicly support pro-life legislation is an affirmation of this separation.

This line of thinking totally misses what the separation of church and state actually means. Here’s what it actually means: the government cannot establish a formal church. That’s all that it means. It does not mean, as liberals imagine, that elected officials cannot govern in accordance with personal religious convictions. So, while Biden cannot force you to assent to the Catholic faith, it would be completely reasonable for him to say, “my faith informs me that abortion is a great evil, and as a result, I must oppose its legality.”

Viewing the separation of church and state in the way many liberals do would be absurd. Everyone, including the non-religious, has personal moral beliefs. Why should the personal moral beliefs of the religious be arbitrarily excluded from influencing government? The justification that not everyone shares those religious beliefs is not sufficient since that is also true of any other secular moral beliefs.

In fact, liberals already assent to the idea that religious beliefs are a satisfactory basis for policy decisions in many cases. When a liberal politician invokes Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. in order to justify a progressive position, voters on the left celebrate that person’s rhetoric. There are tons of recent examples, but most salient is the example of some Jewish people claiming that abortion bans restrict their religious freedom, since Jewish law apparently sometimes requires abortion. If a Jewish governor affirmed his support for legal abortion on the basis of his faith, there is no doubt the very same liberals who claim that conservative Christians cannot govern based on faith would be thrilled.

What this reveals is the actual motive behind claims about the separation of church and state. Those making such claims are not actually concerned for the meta-origin of someone’s beliefs. Instead, they mostly just care for what the specific substantive belief is. There’s nothing wrong with this – in fact, it’s how most of us seem to reason in politics. But they should at least be honest with themselves and others that religion isn’t the reason they oppose a position.

If you’re skeptical of my thinking here, consider this: how would liberals react to a staunchly pro-life atheist who justifies his position on purely secular moral grounds? They would obviously oppose that person’s view on abortion. Liberals don’t care about the origin of the belief; they just care that it lines up with their substantive policy positions.

So, if Biden wanted to sincerely govern in accordance with his faith and outlaw abortion, that would be perfectly okay. It would not violate any principles of separating church from state, and everyone seems to be fine with this when the policy goals align with their own. It’s a shame the president has no interest in supporting the obvious moral good on this issue and instead prefers the political expediency of hiding behind the “separation of church and state.”