I'm categorically objecting to the idea that people who hold different religious beliefs do so because of some fundamental human identity. Religious belief is (indisputably for all practical, objective purposes) a choice.

Religious people constantly choose to believe other things, that's how we know for sure that religious belief is a choice. Because it happens. It's an observable fact.

Being a Sikh is similar to being to being Jewish — It's an ethno-religious identity that does not depend on belief. Sikhs, like Jews, are not religiously required to believe anything. This is as reported to me by a Sikh acquaintance.

I'm much more familiar with how Judaism works, in that being Jewish is like being a member of a tribe. Halachically speaking, a person is accepted as Jewish if they meet certain criteria, primarily that their mother is Jewish, regardless of their (or their mother's) beliefs or practices.

My late husband was a Jew who also happened to be an atheist, or at least a strong agnostic depending on how you define the terms. But in any event, he was a member of the tribe, accepted as such by other Jews who had different beliefs and practices from him.

And of course, as we know, renouncing belief has never been enough for Jewish people to be exempt from persecution, notably during the Holocaust.

I believe Sikhs experience something comparable.

My point about identity is critical, because accepting voluntary belief (rather than in-group membership) as an identity tends to protect practices that are abusive.

We see it when Christians demand the legal right to persecute queer people, which they do constantly, especially in the United States.

Those Christian demand to be protected at law as a very special category of marginalized people. My observation event is that they are simply ordinary people who choose to believe things. Often clearly false things. And then they demand the right to hurt others because of those beliefs.

My basic argument here is that religious belief should never be enough to privilege anyone. No mere voluntary belief should be accepted as an identity worthy of privileging at law.

Beliefa can and should stand on their own merit. If facts demonstrate that something is true, we should act on that. If facts clearly demonstrate that something is not true (like supernatural claims that Christians advance in defense of hurting other people) then we should fight that rather than privileging it as an identity.

Christians and other religious people make plenty of supernatural claims that are clearly false. We know this because of empirical evidence. We know that intercessory prayer does not work, that faith healing does not work, etc.

Facts are facts.

So should we privilege someone because they believe something false, meaning contrary to facts?

I don't think so.