March 10, 2013
The Truth about Legislating Morality

I'm in my early forties, so I can remember well the days of NFL football before instant replay. Whatever the shortcomings, the benefit of the official getting the call right always trumped any inconvenience that might result from a video review of a play.

Of course, "getting it right" means that there is a standard, much like the rules in the NFL, to which we all are (or should be) held. Despite notions to the contrary, as we argue and debate the issues of our day, ultimately each of us relies on such a standard, or some notion of right and wrong, or fair play, or rules, or morality, or whatever you want to call it.

What's more, the very foundation of our government depends upon such a notion. In fact, the foundation of any good government, culture, society, or virtually any situation where human beings interact with one another rests upon what used to be called Natural Law.

Our Founding Fathers understood this well. However, the idea that liberty, good government, and just laws have their roots in Natural Law, or "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," did not begin with the founding of America. For millennia, many philosophers, politicians, priests, and laypeople alike knew the role that Natural Law should play in the "[g]overnments [that] are instituted among men."

Jim Powell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an expert in the history of liberty, credits the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. to 43 B.C.) with expressing the "principles that became the bedrock of liberty in the modern world." Cicero was the leading lawyer of his time, and Thomas Jefferson credits him not only with influencing the Declaration of Independence, but also with informing the American understanding of "the common sense" basis for the right of revolution.

"True law," as Cicero called it, is the "one eternal and unchangeable law [that] will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law[.]"

"[The] Law of Nature" wrote English philosopher John Locke (who also profoundly influenced our Founders), "stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions must ... be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e. to the will of God[.]"

Sir William Blackstone, another renowned and favorite English jurist of our Founders, declared in his presuppositional basis for law that "[t]hese laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil. ... This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this[.]"

C.S. Lewis concludes that "Natural Law or Traditional Morality [whatever one chooses to call it] ... is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained."

Throughout the early colonies, the incorporation of Natural (or "Divine") Law was prevalent. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (the first constitution written in America), as well as similar documents in Rhode Island and New Haven, specifically mentioned that their civil law rested upon "the rule of the word of God," or "all those perfect and most absolute laws of His."

References to specific biblical texts, such as the Ten Commandments, can be found in the civil law of every original U.S. colony. It is a fact of history that throughout our pre-Colonial, Colonial, and Revolutionary periods and beyond, America's lawmakers and laws were steeped in Natural Law.

Thus, we can conclude that from the beginning, our government has been "legislating morality." All law is rooted in morality. "Laws without morals are in vain," said Ben Franklin. Not only that, but every debate we have is rooted in morality.

It is absurd and ignorant to lament conservative Christian efforts when it comes to abortion, marriage, and so on as some attempt to "legislate morality." The other side is attempting the very same thing! In fact, the lamenter (whatever his political persuasion) has also taken a moral stand. Thus, he is like the bank robber who calls the police because his getaway car gets stolen.

What's more, those who attack Natural Law (because an attack on a position that stems from Natural Law is an attack on Natural Law) do so with arguments derived from Natural Law. It is a self-defeating effort. They are attempting to saw off the limb upon which they sit.

As Lewis puts it, "[t]he effort to refute [Natural Law] and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There never has been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) 'ideologies,' all consist of fragments from [Natural Law] itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to [Natural Law] and to it alone such validity as they possess."

Sadly, recent examples of such nonsense come not from Democrats or their liberal friends in the media, but from self-described "Orthodox Christians" within the GOP. Michigan GOP representative Justin Amash recently complained that "[w]e can't legislate morality and force everyone to agree with us." It appears that Amash was trying to impress John Stossel and his gathering of a "thousand young libertarians."

Read more:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/t...l#ixzz2N8rbXYuJ

Ridiculously idiotic article. Try leading by example, rather than trying to force your version of morality on everyone.

You're doing the same thing liberals and Muzlims do.

Leadership has become clouded, the consensus for what's right [and wrong] has been eroded and we're left with everyone deciding for him/herself what is good and right. The point is this has never been a good way to decide right and wrong. The source for deciding what's right and wrong has always, in the past, been external not internal, simply based on our own shifting moral compass.

Legislating morality?

The bottom line is we can't keep a society in check that doesn't want to be kept in check. When the "offenders" greatly outnumber the law abiders and the majority rules, the governing concept here in America doesn't work. America was founded on the principle that God is the one who establishes right and wrong.

So what happens when the vast majority hold to different values than God?

Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #2

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Ridiculously idiotic article. Try leading by example, rather than trying to force your version of morality on everyone.

You're doing the same thing liberals and Muzlims do.

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Quote: Cedric wrote in post #6

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Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #2

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...trying to force your version of morality on everyone.

You're doing the same thing liberals and Muzlims do.

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Red herring.

I don't think our society is currently in imminent danger of forcing too much "morality" on anyone.

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