From Ophelia Benson at Butterflies and Wheels:
Respect means at least two different things, I take it. One, it means basic civility, politeness, the right way to treat people; decency, good behavior, not shoving people or spitting on them or calling them rude names. It doesn't require thinking the people are nice people, or interesting, or right about anything - it doesn't require any opinion of them at all. That's not the point. The point is that the default mode for how to treat people, unless they're approaching you at speed with a sharp sword or trying to take your lunch and eat it themselves, is to be civil. That's respect one; respect two is quite different. It's cognitive, and substantive, and involves judgment; it has content, it's about something, it's earned in some way. That means it can't possibly be universal, or automatic, or a default mode for how to treat everyone; or mandated, or expected or demanded.
This gets to the point I think of why we should not and cannot accept the argument that religious sensitivities - of any religion - should dictate how the rest of us behave beyond letting them get on with it in the privacy of their own homes/temples/churches/mosques. When the religious step outside of that and start trying to dictate how we dress, how we behave in our own world, they abuse Respect1 and in so doing forfeit any right to Respect2.
