Help: I Need Some Moral Reasons Why We Should Not Legislate Religious Morality

self ^ | 2-7-2003 | self

[liberallarry]

Ask yourself how laws are now made and how that would change if "religious morality" became law.

It seems to me that what's at issue is minority rights - and I don't mean just racial or ethnic minorities. In a free society you want to give people as much latitude as possible, consistent with some central core of values. Under a theocracy that central core is greatly expanded to conform to the tenets of the dominant religion.

[DannyTN]

"The point I was making is that it is unconstitutional to ban my speech because my ideas derive from my "religion". >/i>

An excellent point. That we may come from different religions or viewpoints is exactly why freedom of speech is such an important right.

At the end of the day we still have to decide what is moral. And whether or not those morals are to be legislated. And if so how.

Government is constitutionally forbidden from making laws respecting a religion. However there is really very little that prevent's the majority from legislating their view of morality based on their religion.

In fact, I think the only thing that holds that in check is a respect for other's people's right to hold differing viewpoints.

It's a real balancing act. Especially when I consider that I see social ramifications from the moral failures in society. To some extent, legislating morality helps keep awareness of morality. But to overlegislate causes a loss of respect of the law and rebellion and could be said to be worse.

[Voice in your head]

To begin analyzing the topic, you should start off considering the purpose of government. The purpose of government is to secure our rights. In simplest terms, that means deterring the use of force, fraud, and coercion against us and our property. People enter into societies for mutual benefit. Societies form government as means of realizing that mutual benefit. Government is an institution in which we vest our rightful use of retaliatory force to deter the use of force, fraud, and coercion against us. If government directs coercion against us and/or our property, then government is being used to create the problem which it was created to deter. Does the legislation of morality do this? If yes, then see above for an explanation of why not to legislate morality.

[blackbart.223]

"On the contrary. Liberals are the ones saying we should not legislate morality. The question should read "Reasons why we should legislate religous morality."

I think you are missing my point. On whose religion do we legislate? On top of that, on what sect of that religion do we base legislation. This can be a dangerous road.

[Cultural Jihad]

Fine, change the numbers to 67% or 76% white supremacists, or whatever your supermajority level is. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some places in the Deep South of the past that were 90% white supremacists and 10% black. You are evading the question: What then?

In case you weren't aware, the L.P. has a plank which calls for the dismantling of our civil rights laws, essentially making it legal to say "We don't serve those of race X here." And here you are now whining about Jim Crow laws. Do you favor the repeal of civil rights legislation? Being conservative means we are big on justice, and prejudice is an injustice.

[Phil V.]

I Need Some Moral Reasons Why We Should Not Legislate Religious Morality

Try to find a moral Religious State . . . one where individuals and groups not belonging to the "correct" religion enjoy equality. When you discover that ALL Religious States disenfranchise the "infidels" you will have an acceptable answer . . . except for those who believe that disenfranchising the "infidels" is moral.

[RaceBannon]

Morality only comes from religion, else, it is not morality, it is opinion.

Morals assume the condition that what is held to as a belief, it is inviolate. Only something from God can be that.

There may be some small cases of where that which is inviolate can be broken, but only to the idea of that event being tragic, such as who gets thrown off the lifeboat when there is only food for one less person. The tragedy is fewer people can survive longer, but an innocent has to die in order for that to happen.

So, laws are what society declares to be inviolate in moral principle. That does not mean the singular event cannot escape punishment, the inviolate moral rule is still in effect.

If what you mean, though, is that a series of moral laws that are in effect do NOT make a population moral acting, then you are right. People only obey laws for fear of punishment or by agreement, but never all the people all the time, and never in the mind and heart 100% in any of those cases, the human mind may see the logic in obeying, but there will always be the tempation to break the law, either in word or deed.

That reality, that men will always have a thought or word that is against that moral code in idea, that shows that the precense of the law/moral code, did NOTHING to change the man inhis nature. That is why there needs to be laws, not becaue they make men moral, but because they define what is right and what is wrong.

[Hank Rearden]

"The Government does not own me."

You're welcome.

[ConservativeMan55]

Lets face it, there are things in life that every decent person with common sense knows are wrong. There are things almost everybody understands are right. Religion doesn't even come into play here.

Most people have been raised and imbued with a sense of right and wrong. Some choose to reject those standards. Other simply never learn them early in life. But at some level, almost everyone, with the exception by definition of the criminally insane, recognizes right from wrong.

[Cultural Jihad]

An excellent post.

[ConservativeMan55]

Excellent! I agree!

[blackbart.223]

"Lets face it, there are things in life that every decent person with common sense knows are wrong. There are things almost everybody understands are right. Religion doesn't even come into play here.".

This is the point I was trying to make. I don't suppose I did a very good job of it. Let me take it a step further. The founding fathers only believed in seperation of church and state because they hated The Church Of England. A state supported religion. Do I make myself clear?

[Romulus]

Religious morality is not the same as natural law. The very act of legislation presupposes embrace of the idea of social order, which needn't have any specifically religious foundation to be grounded in natural law. Legislation does not exist in a state of howling anarchy; it can honor principles of subsidiarity and personal dignity without being specifically "religious". Thus, the rights to life, property, family, conscience, and culture all exist outside religion.

Religious morality -- the particulars of ecclesial moral doctrine -- ought not be legislated precisely because to do so violates natural law. Christians will add to this, that religious conformity enjoined by law is not faith but terrorism, and contradicts all we know of a God who is and reveals Himself through love, whose salvation is freedom because it's driven by love not law and because its ultimate promise -- triumph over death -- is the ultimate freedom.

[coloradan]

In the hypothetical example of the Taliban Party coming to power what would prevent Islamic Law being imposed on the rest of the country is the codification of the Christian docrine of Free Will in several Ammendements to the Constitution. Sharia could only be imposed coercively and that would require a suspension of the Constitution in order for such a scenario to play out.

But we have: "campaign finance reform" that gags political speech prior to elections (violates 1st Amendment), the requirement to apply for permits in order to protest government policies (1st), anti-gang laws (1st), a bazillion gun control laws (2nd), searches and screenings at airports (4th), mandatory searches of bank transactions ("know your customer") (4th) Carnivore, Echelon, other Patriot act wiretaps (4th), civil asset forfeiture (5th) ... etc. In light of these demonstrable rights erosions, how sure can you be that my hypothetical example can't possibly happen?

[billbears]

So I guess we just wipe out that facts that several of the respective states after the signing of the Constitution had established state churches? And that some of those states required taxes, as much as 5%, to be paid to maintain those churches as late as the 1820s. And the fact that several of the respective states still require state leaders to have a belief in God Almighty before being sworn in?

In Barron v. Baltimore (1833), the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights limits the federal government, not the states. Connecticut had an established church until 1818, and Massachusetts until 1833.

Is that the kind of religious morality that you're against legislating? Seems the Founders and the immediate generation following thought differently

[coloradan]

The alternative is what we actually have: in a Consitutional Republic some questions are put beyond reach of the majority. At least that's how it's supposed to happen. For example, gun control laws are supposed to not happen at all, because of the Second Amendment. "One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no election." The fact we do have gun control represents a failure of staying true to our system of government. The fact that Jim Crow laws came into being, or that women weren't allowed to vote, was because of Clintonian parsing, that blacks or women weren't "citizens" in much the same way that, today, fetuses are not considered "human beings" by today's abortion activists.

[coloradan]

Why should I answer your questions if you refuse to answer mine? By the way, nice use of a straw man argument: I didn't say anything about the Libertarian party platform, yet you drag it into this thread and demand my response to it.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

If a super Majority of Americans desire, the Constitution can readily be amended.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[coloradan]

Adoption of the entire Constitution rested on the adoption of the Bill Of Rights, which makes repeal of those provisions tantamount to rejecting the entire thing. Note that the gun grabbers aren't advancing proposals to repeal the Second Amendment, but rather arguing that it doesn't mean what it says (militia = National Guard, only) and misinterpreting Miller, etc.