My wife puts it nicely: Combining religion and government makes a mockery of both.

Even relatively mild forms, as seen in the State of Israel, remain an endless source of stupidity. Consider that it is still impossible to marry across religions (short of performing the ceremony in another country), or even marry at all if your religious status is indeterminate — and since the official rabbinate is Orthodox, all Reform and Conservative Jewish converts are “indeterminate”, and even born Jews from Reform and Conservative communities must struggle to prove their proper “Jewishness”. Or that, since places of religious worship are government sponsored, but only if they follow government standards, they are plentiful yet plagued with weak and powerless congregations. Vigorous, independent places of worship are rare, because they are hopelessly undercut by subsidized competition.