Dennis Prager indirectly mentioned something that I have said for years. Americans distinguish “ethics” and “morality” as two different things. Here’s the background to this argument.
At the time of the American Revolution, Europe was just emerging from the belief that Kings ruled nations because they were “anointed by Heaven”. And this gave them a “moral” authority that they didn’t have. That is, if you disobeyed the crown, you not only broke the king’s law, but your act was an “affront to heaven”. You were “offending God.”
The founding fathers were extremely contemptuous of this thinking, and didn’t want it in the United States at all.
So they were very clear about “WE, the People of the United States...” And though most of them were quite religious and believed in God, they wanted to be crystal clear that “Heaven DID NOT write our constitution.” People did. And what people write can be changed by other people.
Without offending Heaven.
This is the *real* “separation of church and state”. That while politicians of faith are usually respected, THEY DO NOT HAVE THE IMPRIMATUR OF HEAVEN. Any law they write, no matter how similar to the laws of their faith, is *still* a law written by people, not Heaven.
And this is where the public view of “ethics” and “morality” come into play.
The typical American defined ethics as obeying the law. If you are a moral person on top of that, usually that is just fine. The public believes it can objectively and clearly tell if a politician is ethical.
However, morality is confusing. The morality of a righteous person is obeying the laws of their faith, and their church or other place of worship. And it is seen as being totally *subjective*.
Bill Clinton would be the first politician to claim that he is a “moral” person. Because, to paraphrase him, “It depends on what your definition of morality is.”
Nancy Pelosi regularly spouts that she is “moral”, even though she rejects every important part of her alleged faith of Catholicism, and embraces many things morally repugnant to Catholicism.
So Dennis Prager was very correct that it DOES NOT matter what a politician thinks or even says in private. What matters is what he *does* in public.
We, as Americans can support him, if he is ethical. That his actions reflect what we believe in, and conform to the law.
If he often proclaims his morality, we need to mistrust him, because we have no idea what he means by that. And that he mentions it, instead of his ethics, raises yet another question.
If we were on Reddit, I’d give you an upvote for that.
One of the better explanations of ethics and morality in the American sense that I’ve seen.