In defense of secularism

Responding to a Mitt "Mitt" Romney speech on his religious beliefs that, in the spin cycle of current pol drama, feels like ages ago (i.e. it was in December), Hendrik Hertzberg defines secularism in the best and simplest of terms:

No, you are wrong. Secularism is not a religion, any more than freedom of association is an association. Secularism is a political condition that permits a variety of religions and beliefs about religion to coexist peacefully. And the existence of God (or the divinity of Jesus) is not a fact to be acknowledged, it’s a belief to be protected, along with contrary beliefs or nonbeliefs.