Both the United States and Canada have traditionally given preferential treatment to religious organizations which have sought tax-exempt status. Getting a similar designation for a secular group has often required meeting higher standards, but the Humanist Association of Toronto successfully fought for tax-exempt status despite government opposition.

Eye Weekly explains:

That religious groups should be automatically entitled to charitable status under the law is a symptom of what University of Toronto history professor and specialist in the confluence of religion and politics Arthur Sheps calls "a cultural historic hangover." Historically, he says, churches in Canada have been seen as "a socially progressive force" and have been responsible for such good work as caring for the poor. While the welfare state has since taken on this role, the assumption that religious groups benefit society persists while other, less supernatural perspectives are often suspected of being "just lobby groups," he says. Meanwhile, the political impact of religion can be discerned, Sheps says, in the "unfortunate alliance between certain kinds of religious people and those who are socially conservative for all kinds of reasons."

For a long time, religion and state in the West were deeply intertwined - and that situation persists through much of the rest of the world. Disentangling them will be a difficult job, assuming that it is even possible. Many religious believers don't want to see it happen - they feel that either the state lacks legitimacy without the sanction of their religion, that their religion requires state approval, or both. Neither of those positions is really justifiable or even consistent with what religious believers typically say, but for some reason that doesn't seem to matter. The religious addiction to state support has not yet been ended. Perhaps religion should be sent to a 12-step program somewhere?

Read More:

• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101