Secularism. ... One form of secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government of religion or religious practices upon its people. The reason that this is an important argument is because the United States is a secular society, which means that the social structure is not based on or tied to any one particular religion. In sociology, the process by which a society moves away from a religious framework or foundation is known as secularization.

According to the anthropologist Jack David Eller's review of secularity, he observes that secularization is very diverse and can vary by degree and kind. He notes the sociologist Peter Glasner's ten institutional, normative, or cognitive processes for secularization as:

• Decline – the reduction in quantitative measures of religious identification and participation, such as lower church attendance/membership or decreased profession of belief
• Routinization – "settling" or institutionalizing through integration into the society and often compromise with the society, which tends to occur when the religion becomes large and is therefore one mark of success as a religion, although it is less intense and distinct than in its early formative "cultish" or new-religious-movement stage
• Differentiation – a redefined place or relation to society, perhaps accepting its status as one religion in a plural religious field or morphing into a more "generic" and therefore mass-appeal religion.
• Disengagement – the detachment of certain facets of social life from religion
• Transformation – change over time 
• Generalization – a particular kind of change in which it becomes less specific, more abstract, and therefore more inclusive, like the supposed "civil religion" in the United States; it moderates its more controversial and potentially divisive claims and practices
• Desacralization – the evacuation of "supernatural" beings and forces from the material world, leaving culture and rationality to guide humans instead
• Segmentation – the development of specialized religious institutions, which take their place beside other specialized social institutions
• Secularization – the processes of urbanization, industrialization, rationalization, bureaucratization, and cultural/religious pluralism through which society moves away from the "sacred" and toward the "profane"
• Secularism – the only form that leads to outright rejection of religion, amounting to atheism