The taboo against racial slurs is itself religious, by any clear-eyed concept of religion. In the same sense that Thanksgiving is a holiday of the American civ

The taboo against racial slurs is itself religious, by any clear-eyed concept of religion. In the same sense that Thanksgiving is a holiday of the American civic religion, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a martyred saint of that religion. He has statues and a day of remembrance; any attempt to separate this from religious observance is going to have its work cut out for it. I expect this will be interpreted as disrespecting the tenets of that religion, but I revere the Reverend Doctor and abstain from saying slurs out of piety, as well as ordinary fear. I offer this as evidence: if the prohibition were part of a more general idea that we shouldn't insult other people, the use-mention distinction would still apply. Yet many lecturers have been dismissed for mentioning the n-slur, without directing it at anyone. The only conclusion which fits the facts is religious taboo.