Sometimes, seemingly conflicting concepts are actually true at the same time. Regarding our Constitutionally limited Republic, there is the way it actually functions, and there is the way it actually is. How it is should depend on its original intent. That, however, is clearly open to interpretation. How it functions, is as much if not more about who does the interpreting than about what it actually is.
That applies to morality as well. There are "the laws of nature and nature's God" which tell us how it IS. But, in practice, it depends on who is doing the defining.
In our system or gov't "of the people, by the people, for the people", the Constitution keeps us only as protected as the knowledge of those doing the interpreting (which depends on the understanding of the people doing the voting).
I do not believe in moral relativity or Constitutional relativity for that matter. But I do believe in functional relativity. That's the way it works in practice. We need to exercise our freedom of speech to persuade the masses to believe in the original intent of the Constitution, absolute morality, etc..or it won't matter what morality really is, or what the FF's intentions were, or what the Constitution really means.
Regarding going from socializing morality to moralizing socialism (clever, btw) that's an excellent point. Aren't we already moralizing socialism but not socializing morality? I don't know, maybe that's how we got around to moralizing socialism -- by socializing morality -- but currently, we are in the later stage, not the former.
Honestly, most of these issues about morality should be addressed and solved in the private sector. No laws required. (It used to be called social taboo I think. Good old fashioned shame.) The laws required are local laws. But to take the position that the gov't has no role ever, at all, in maintaining the desired moral, social norms of a community, is to deny it's people the freedom to organize and assemble a community as they see fit (within the Constitution). That isn't freedom, that's anarchy.
Regarding going from socializing morality to moralizing socialism (clever, btw) that's an excellent point. Aren't we already moralizing socialism but not socializing morality? I don't know, maybe that's how we got around to moralizing socialism -- by socializing morality -- but currently, we are in the later stage, not the former.
In terms of what the government's role and proper authority is, it might clear up some of the disagreement and confusion if we didn't try to frame the question in terms of "morality" as a whole. Perhaps what we need to do is try to define and limit the argument to that subset of morality called "civility".