Matthew Piccolo
Staff Writer
A common argument supporting same-sex marriage is that it should be legal because it does not affect other people.
Whenever divisive topics such as abortion, gambling, pornography or gay rights come up, the common cry from one side of the aisle proclaims that the government should not legislate morality or impose someone else’s morality on all citizens.
But in reality, most laws legislate some type of morality. In fact, the primary purpose of lawmaking is to determine what is right and wrong and then to enforce and encourage what is right.
Most Americans believe it is wrong to murder, steal, lie and cheat in most circumstances. In rare cases of self-defense, Americans have determined that taking another’s life is morally legitimate. Although that conclusion may derive from religious beliefs, history, science or a myriad of other sources, someone had to choose what is right and wrong in that situation for everyone.
Laws prohibiting abortion, pornography and indecency on public airwaves stem from views on morality. Not to permit gay couples to wed is to pass a moral judgment that gays are unfit for marriage.
But so is assisting the poor through government subsidies, providing universal health care or mandating quality education in public institutions. All these programs and policies rely on the assumption that allowing Americans to suffer from poverty, poor health or ignorance is immoral. Taxing one person to pay for the needs of another assumes that privileged citizens have the moral obligation to help the underprivileged. Guaranteeing equal and fair access to jobs, housing and family planning options assumes that inequity and discrimination are wrong.
Policies that address climate change, pollution and animal extinction legislate morality. They demonstrate a belief that depleting natural resources excessively and leaving a barren world for future generations is immoral. We permit women and minorities to vote believing that it is wrong to exclude participation based on gender or race. Laws that makes prostitution, rape, harmful drugs, speeding and vandalism illegal all rely on moral premises.
People base their moral judgments on their background, experience, world views and ethical or religious beliefs. No matter the source of one’s opinions, everyone has views on morality. Policy makers should question not if they should legislate morality, but whose morality they should legislate. In his farewell address, George Washington said, “All of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
Although church and state are separate, religious beliefs can influence one’s moral judgment. For most Americans, religion happens to be the primary influence on their morality.
In the United States, the majority’s morality, regardless of its source, will exert the greatest influence on the law. But enforcing that morality can pose a dangerous threat to the rights of the minority.
One might argue that the Constitution guarantees individual liberty or the ability to choose one’s actions provided that they harm no one else. In other words, liberty ends only when it infringes on another’s. Therefore, the government cannot prevent people from action that only affects them. This argument has two weaknesses.
First, almost every action we pursue affects someone else in some way, positively or negatively. Men who consume excessive amounts of alcohol might abuse their children, burden society with rehabilitative health care costs or even terminate another’s life in an auto accident. Even not wearing a seatbelt or overdosing on prescription drugs harms others. When anyone suffers, society, and close family members and friends, undergo emotional and economic distress.
Second, the Constitution guarantees the basic right to life, liberty, and property. But someone had to determine depriving one’s neighbor of those rights is morally wrong, which the American people did long ago. But even those “unalienable” rights are not untouchable. Through the democratic process, the people could amend those rights out of existence.
The claim that people must be free from the morality of all others is based on the moral conviction that everyone deserves unfettered liberty. Not to permit “moral” legislation would obliterate the basis on which individual liberty rests.
Most laws legislate morality. A legal system without morality would regulate little more than zoning requirements and street parking. Public deliberation and debate should cease to focus on whether legislating morality is, ironically, moral, but rather concentrate on whose morality has the greatest support and on which basis the government can most effectively legislate it.
03-22-2007