Because you can't legislate morality...
"You can't legislate morality" is one of those idiotic rote-phrases which is completely false, but which millions of morons repeat mindlessly as though it were a hallowed TRUTH obvious and self-evident to all. It is not.
Every law ever passed in history has been an act of legislating morality. Laws against murder legislate the moral idea that murder is wrong. Laws against theft and fraud legislate the moral idea that property rights, contracts, and honesty and trust are good for society and must be protected. Traffic laws legislate the morality that certain acts on the road are dangerous, and therefore to be discouraged. Building codes legislate the morality that one should not build substandard and dangerously unsafe buildings. Zoning ordinances legislate the morality that communities should be organized in a certain way beneficial to the community as a whole. Drug laws and porn laws legislate notions of morality that acts can be injurious to the community, whether or not they are "victimless crimes" in someone's opinion.
An act of legislation may be mistaken about its moral effects or about the kind of morality it wants to instill, but the fact remains that law by its very nature is an attempt to legislate morality. And often it succeeds in legislating morality. It is only when a sufficiently large number of people do not think that something is immoral that laws fail to "legislate morality".
Well, if I had known that Albert Einstein was going to rise up and snidely lecture me I guess I might have better prepared myself.
It is evident, because you don't have enough police for enforcement.
It doesn't matter how many laws you pass, if someone wants to break the law they will. And in the case of porn, whores, moonshine-- whatever-- all the laws in the world don't mean anything except something to point to at re-election time.
What needs to be addressed, in the schools and homes, is a code of conduct (and the reasons for such a code) so that society rejects the bad behavior.
And I'll say it again, real slow, just for you: Pass all the laws you want, but you can't legislate morality...
I see your point, and I've argued the same before. The original intent of this saying, however, is that one cannot change hearts by enacting laws.
Even the Apostle Paul makes this clear in his Epistle to the Romans. "By the law comes knowledge of sin." Human nature is such that it craves those things that are wrong, all the more when the message of prohibition is clear.
So . . . we can pursue this issue with laws if we wish, but we're kidding ourselves if we think we'll bring about a new world of true love and kindness by so doing.