That’s why religion should be kept entirely separate from politics. France has this right. It’s dangerous.
The right to observe your own beliefs no matter how incoherent or ridiculous should be preserved but very clearly confined to private life and has no place in politics or law making. People can believe whatever they like in private providing they are doing so with consenting adults and complying with respect for the basic rights and freedoms of others to do likewise, and the laws of the country which protect others such as children (a big problem for children being raised in homes with such parents that democratic states have been unwilling to tackle, leading to many abusive childhoods).
There are inherent contradictions in any view to the contrary, which I outlined in my earlier posts on this thread, and as such they are unworkable and unsustainable and collapse in on themselves. This is a large reason why societies governed by such religious doctrines which almost all contain such discriminatory and irrational “values” are inherently more unstable, less successful, more violent, less happy, less wealthy, and have lower living standards. This is also why Kirk’s false claim to be a proponent of free speech was absurd since he advocated this only for specific people, e.g. not for women. Not even within their own homes. Utter hypocrisy and therefore clearly not a basis for any workable public policy.
Kirk’s views were not much different to those of fundamentalist Islamists. The chosen sky fairy is irrelevant to those who just want to be able to get on with their lives in peace without these nutters imposing their irrational and abusive worldviews onto everyone else based on some book or other from a couple of thousand years ago. Fortunately social structures, science and the rest of humanity who isn’t in the grip of these ideologies has advanced significantly since such books were written so there’s no reason the rest of us should be forced to listen to this nonsense, any more than there should be enforced cycling or skydiving or knitting. If this is how some people wish to spend their spare time then fine, but they have absolutely no business trying to impose it on others.
Kirk knew damn well - but pretending not to - that free speech has to exist within constraints to continue to exist. This is also the case for all other freedoms, which mean you can observe your personal values in your own life but there is only a case for restricting the freedom of others to the extent that it is necessary to do so in order for those freedoms to be able to be maintained for all. Alarm bells should ring when someone starts trying to “other” one group of people in society or claim one should have superior rights to another based on their sex or religion or skin colour because the inevitable outcome if they are successful in their mission will be that everyone’s freedom’s vanish.
This is the entire basis of having a sustainable democratic system or any freedom at all, otherwise it will cease to exist and all freedoms will be lost. This is why all extremist who seek to impose their “values” on others beyond the constraints necessary to ensure that all are protected from infringement of these same rights are a fundamental danger to society, no matter what they want to call themselves or what ideology they try to use to justify their opinions.