A modern update to political emancipation before religious emancipation.

 Marx summarized Bauer's answer to "The Jewish Question" as a theological answer. There can be no political emancipation for the Jewish people until the Christian people are emancipated from the Christian State. The political abolition of religion is needed for the emancipation of all people. That leads to the idea that the political abolition of religion is the abolition of all religion because it must retreat from the public sphere.

 Marx responds to Bauer by reversing the order of emancipation. You first focus on secular political emancipation, and religious emancipation will follow. By making emancipation a secular issue, you can truly get at the failings of the state instead of just the failings of religion that the state is hiding behind. Marx points to North America as an example, where seemingly secular states have arisen. Marx points out that a secular state where religion is thriving would mean religion is not opposed to a perfect state. However, although religion was thriving in the US at the time, while also being a secular state, it does not count as this golden example to disprove Bauer. 

There is an argument to be made that the US was proof that a perfect state and religion are not opposed. Marx disagrees citing that "no one in the United States believes that a man without religion can be an honest man" and "North America is pre-eminently a country of religiosity". But to satisfy his golden example of "fresh" and "vigorous" religion, wouldn't you need to be a country of religiosity? His first point is a good one. If all your elected officials only trust those who are religious, is the state still secular? It's well within the realm of possibility to assume yes. After all, one of the functions of law is so that you don't have to trust people, you can just trust the law. We also have many religious presidents but not often a complaint that they bring their religion into the office to the point of endangering our secular society. So you can have a perfect state and religion...except I doubt anyone would describe the US in the 19th century as the perfect state despite the secularity. In fact, some would argue that religion is what helped the US work towards a more perfect state during the civil rights movement. As the US has become more secular, poverty and the wealth gap have grown. So a modern update to Marx's example would support the idea that political emancipation needs to be reached before religious emancipation.