After showing you my dark side, I thought I might back-pedal a little bit to show you the flip-side of my thoughts regarding morality and legislation.

First, a short aside: I suppose you can really legislate your morals into action, and I do believe that law should have moral underpinnings. That said, law should work towards fairness, and not cater to any single group’s moral world view. So yes, laws can be moral, but that morality is the same as fairness.

I’ve been keeping my eye on the news for a while, because I’ve started to notice that there are also groups that try to “legislate immorality.” Basically, they try to stop people from doing things I would normally view as good. This goes against my basic view of how laws should be made: they should protect personal freedom in every sense except where other’s freedoms begin to be encroached upon.

Freedom of Speech, Except When Someone Disagrees

One interesting and very recent story was covered this week. A ten-year-old boy was prohibited from wearing a Jesus costume during his school’s Halloween activities. His mother got the costume for him because although she didn’t really like the pagan aspect of Halloween, she didn’t want him to feel left out during some innocent festivities. Apparently he was told by the principal to remove his fake crown of thorns, and was instructed not to tell his peers he had dressed up as Jesus. Ironically, the principal also told him to try to pass as a Roman emperor.

“Hey kid, listen. You can’t pretend your Jesus, but you can pretend to be the guy who got him killed.”

This sort of policy is really appalling—especially since other kids can dress up as devils—and is probably a misguided attempt to maintain the separation of church and state I’ve referred to before. People that cry for “diversity” often deny the Christian his right to express his views, and this has always puzzled me.

The kid was harming no one, and I doubt he was harassing his classmates into a mass baptism. Such a costume is a healthy, non-obscene way to express one’s views in a public forum. If you can’t demonstrate that he was harming others, then there really is no basis for this sort of policy.

(The said part of the story is that a Christian Legal group (what exactly is that?) from Arizona has picked up the case and is suing the principal and the school district. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Jesus would do.)

I’ve heard similar cases where high school seniors are not allowed to reference their faith in graduation addresses, and how prayer is being forcibly removed from school settings. If the expressions of faith are not harming other’s rights, I don’t see how you can form a cogent policy against religious interactions in the public. We’re actually allowed to offend each other under certain conditions, and I somehow doubt using up thirty seconds of silence in prayer or mentioning a godmother in a speech is slanderous, libelous, or obscene.

In God We Trust

Another related topic, one that is in a bit more of a gray area, is the issue of Judeo-Christian symbols and phrases in American currency and culture.

Our coinage talks about God, our pledge affirms our faith: all of these religious elements remain in governmental institutions. Is it wrong to have these things there? Are we being unfair to our atheist, muslim, or buddhist American citizens.

I say no.

Here’s why: I think that these national symbols reflect our national heritage. They are a part of our culture, because this nation was founded by the great god fearing men of the past. The language of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence reflect their personal beliefs.

I’m pretty sure you can’t be forced to say the pledge if you don’t agree with it, and I don’t see how cultural remembrances of our Christian American foundations placed on currency affect the freedoms of others. I’m sorry that atheists didn’t found the nation, and if they had, maybe we’d remember them a different way.

I think efforts to remove these cultural remembrances are also misguided. These elements aren’t there to push forward any given moral agenda: they remain to remind us of those who have gone before. Trying to remove them is ignorant of the past, and frankly, is disrespectful to the men that sacrificed for the freedoms we now enjoy.

Are there other examples I’ve missed?

There have been a lot of related issues on my mind lately, and I’ve put off writing for a time in order to let things simmer. I hope this doesn’t seem to scattered: its taken some time to sort out, and I hope it rolls out here in some sort of cogent manner.

The main issue I’ve been thinking about is the term “Legistlating Morality.” I’ve been wrestling with the idea for a long time, and it has always felt… well… wrong. Sound odd? I suppose it should. I’ve found myself on the other side of the fence lately - fighting for the protection of people I despise, but in the end, I think I’ve taken the right approach. Let me explain.

The Illusion Behind “Moral” Laws

Many lawmakers and philosophers out there talk about the moral reasons for law. Don’t steal. Don’t kill other people. These sound like a moral force: laws that have been crafted for the sole purpose of making bad people into good ones.

In my view, the true role of government isn’t to make good people, it is to allow everyone to live in an environment that is fair to everyone. Sometimes this comes across as a ‘moral’ mission, but the real reason laws are enacted is to level the playing field. Why does the government manage the roads? Everyone needs to use them to work, trade, and recreate. The general idea is to keep people from harming each other so everyone can do what they want.

Sometimes laws may seem to have a morally correct foundation, but I think this is an illusion. The point of law is to promote liberty by eliminating and reducing any possible harm caused by other citizens.

Some see law and public policy as a way to advance a certain moral cause. I think sometimes people figure that as long as the majority agrees with a certain position, its acceptable to legislate morality. If were fighting to put something into law that is for a good cause, how could that be wrong?

Liberty, Agency and the Necessary Evil

I think I’ve probably surprised people occasionally when I’ve taken a stance that seems opposite to my core beliefs. On occasion, I’ve argued in behalf of the pornographer or atheist. My main reasoning behind doing that is that I believe it’s wrong to try to legislate morality. Its really hard for me to take that stance sometimes, but hopefully I can explain why I sometimes to seem to be fighting for the wrong team.

Lehi used up his last pages in the Book of Mormon to get this important idea across: there needs to be opposition in all things. Why? Because righteousness cannot manifest itself unless there is wickedness to be had.

When we try to legislate morality, we turn the government into something it isn’t meant to be. We are trying to remove opposition. Instead of protecting justice, freedom, and liberty, the State turns into the confused enforcer of a moral standard for a subset of its citizens. In a sense, you’ve elected to remove liberty, expecting to keep agency. When you force someone to do something, even if it is the “right” thing to do, you’ve lost liberty.

Without liberty, there is no agency. Without agency and liberty, there is no righteousness.

The interesting thing about liberty is that it it can be a tool used to build agency or a corrosive poison that drains agency:

With respect to the loss of personal liberty through the misuse of free agency, our daily lives are filled with tragic evidence. We see the alcoholic with his craving for drink, the dope fiend in his frenzy, and worse, the pervert with his irretrievable loss of manhood. Who will say that such persons enjoy liberty? …Every wrong decision one makes restricts the area in which he can thereafter exercise his agency. The further one goes in the making of wrong decisions in the exercise of free agency, the more difficult it is for him to recover the lost ground. One can, by persisting long enough, reach the point of no return. He then becomes an abject slave. By the exercise of his free agency, he has decreased the area in which he can act, almost to the vanishing point.
Marion G. Romney

Consider the man who uses his liberty to drink himself into oblivion every night. His mood, intelligence, and health gradually corrode, leaving him with fewer and fewer options as time passes. Liberty in this case is used to smother agency.

Consider also the man who uses the same liberty to walk past the liquor store every day on his way to work. His increased resolve frees him to pursue his own interests. Liberty fuels the fire of agency, and righteousness is manifest.

Just as following wrong alternatives restricts free agency and leads to slavery, so pursuing correct alternatives widens the scope of one’s agency and leads to perfect liberty.
Marion G. Romney, Ibid.

Is drinking bad? Yes. Should we enact legislation to prohibit people from drinking?

No.

Government: The Great Equalizer

According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2005, 16,885 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes. One almost every half-hour.

I think this is where the question gets harder. Wouldn’t it save lives if we made drinking against the law? Wouldn’t we be more secure if we removed this sort of behavior from society? If we could pass such a measure, the democratic process would have run its due course.

I think this sort of approach is wrong. The role of the government is not to tell us that drinking is right or wrong, it is to step in when people are being harmed. I think the current legislation surrounding alcohol is more or less the correct approach: don’t allow people to drink and drive.

There are scientifically based reasons behind this legislation: the human brain is disabled during drinking to a point that is dangerous while driving. There are no fuzzy lines or moral undertones that drive these laws: you can prove why it needs to be thus with a few simple experiments. There really can’t be much argument about the issue, because you can prove your reasoning.

If we empower government to enforce morality, we lose the power to define our own.

The correct stance is to allow liberty. If people can drink, liberty is maintained. If people can drive on the road with less fear of being hit by an intoxicated driver, liberty is maintained. Allow drinking, prohibit drinking and driving.

Because liberty is a prerequisite for agency and righteousness, it will sometimes seem as though I’m fighting for people to have the right to drink. The same liberty that allows for people to drink allows me to actively choose not to drink. It allows me to make my own decisions about what I put into my body. That’s liberty.

This is the true role of government. If we sacrifice liberty, the results will only lead to decreased righteousness.

We have a classic example of the loss of economic freedom by the misuse of free agency in the book of Genesis. The Egyptians, instead of exercising their agency to provide for themselves against a day of need, depended upon the government. As a result, when the famine came they were forced to purchase food from the government. First they used their money. When that was gone, they gave their livestock, then their lands; and finally they were compelled to sell themselves into slavery, that they might eat.

We ourselves have gone a long way down this road during the last century. My counsel is that we beware of the doctrine which encourages us to seek government-supported security rather than to put faith in our own industry.
Marion G. Romney

Keep that Bathwater

When morality is forced, you eliminate the possibility of righteousness. If you’ve forced goodness on everyone, then no one is good anymore. Even the lowest of men will pray and attend church if threatened by a $50,000 fine and 6-12 months in jail. Is that same man “good” for making sure he attends?

God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing … And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
Moroni 7:6,9

If there is no possibility of doing evil, there is no possibility of doing good. Legislation, prompted by purely moral tenets, is a step in the wrong direction. The whole point of life on Earth is to be tested, and the test loses its discriminatory power when we (not God) threaten students with prison time if they don’t get all the answers right.

It’s fine to imprison students who are making it impossible for others to finish the exam, however.

Wasn’t it Lucifer who first wanted to force morality? That planned was scrapped in favor of a plan that allowed for all sorts of reprehensible behavior. Why?

…We will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
Abraham 3

It must have been a horrific sacrifice on God’s part to place his children in a situation where some of them wouldn’t make it. As a father, I feel a similar responsibility. But if I force my children into “good” their whole lives, how can they really be “good”?

Ever wonder why God set Adam and Eve in a garden with a tree they weren’t suppose to eat from?

The Retreat of Resolve

One of the scariest dangers of forced morality is that it erodes at our ability to reject temptation. When the punishment is artificially extreme, we don’t have to try as hard to avoid sin.

If I completely protected my children from drugs and pornography for their entire youth, how effective would they be, as adults, in rejecting enticing advertising or peer pressure later on? If there was absolutely no way to see inappropriate material on the Internet at home, how would I steel my children to the temptations that will present themselves in the future?

How can you be strong when you’re protecting yourself from nothing? How can you be willful when you’re keeping yourself from the impossible?

Governments should help us install safety nets: that much is sure, but we need not depend on them to fortify us against bad influences.

A More Correct Approach

Because forced morality doesn’t work, there needs to be some sort of answer. As appealing as it is to close up this rant and move on without providing some sort of solution, I think I’ll put one on the table before I wrap up.

There is a distinct and profound difference in fighting for the right and forcing the right. When we educate, when we teach, when we love: that’s when real progress is made. People decide on their own to become good people, and that’s what life is all about.

I will fight until the day I die against drugs, pornography, and atheism. The best way I know how to fight against these ills of society is through personal effort and care. We can’t force people away from these things. We can’t expect the government to be responsible for keeping our children away from bad influences. People need to have both options in front of them. When they are educated and loved by others, they can make the right choice.

We need to fight for the right while maintaining liberty for all. We need to persuade and coach rather than press and compel. The human spirit is born with an unquenchable desire for the power to choose. Taking away that power only causes rebellion.

You will never be able to force a change of heart - you can only inspire others, and love them until they make the right choices on their own.

If we are going to make a difference, we also need to work to legislate against behaviors that can be clearly proven to be harmful. This means that we need to show harm using secular means. Not only does this make enforcing the legislation practical, but it removes the moral debate and allows progress to move forward in a clear, fair manner.

Pre- Retorts

In my discussions with others, I’ve met up with some common replies to my line of thinking. Let me address these in hopes that they won’t find new life now that I’ve vocalized my point of view.

Morality is about right and wrong, and that’s what laws put into legal form. Can you think of one law which doesn’t declare one behavior right and its opposite wrong?

No, but that’s because fair play is moral. Laws are moral only because they aim to maintain fairness.

You say you need to have exposure and access to sin in order to build resolve. Do I have place myself in a position where I can easily murder/commit adultery/commit some horrible sin in order to be more resistant to that temptation?

Nope. I don’t think many people fall into murder out of nowhere - its usually the result of the feeding of smaller sins and letting them run wild. In the case of murder, it’s usually a direct result of feeding anger or pride. In the case of sexual sins, it’s feeding inappropriate thoughts.

Removing yourself to a place where there is no one to anger you, or no one to tempt you will weaken your resolve. There is a reasonable amount of risk we take in participating in society. Others may anger or tempt us, but we need to take that reasonable amount of risk. Winning small victories by turning down invitations to sin makes us better people.

This nation was built on Christian principles. Its the right thing to do to return our nation to its religious roots. The morality I wish to legislate returns us to those roots.

Here are some Christian principles I hold dear:

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.
D&C 134:9

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
11th Article of Faith

I think that the government should be empowered with the ability to shield me from bad influence. Pornography is rampant on the Internet, and the government should respond by monitoring the content that is placed on it.

While the government can rightly be tasked with keeping everything fair, we have to remain somewhat skeptical of the government itself. Allowing the government too much power in enforcing fairness can also be limiting to liberty and thus agency and righteousness.

Privacy is a way to maintain security against the government. If we give the government power over privacy, they hold information about us, and information is power. Protecting privacy hides the occasional criminal, but it also protects the reformer.

Christians have as much a right as non-Christians to speak out and to influence legislation in our democratic society.

That’s true, but morally reprehensible scoundrels should also have the right to operate as they please as long as they aren’t hurting anyone. If the government tries to discover harm using scientific means, the lines are clear cut. If the government attempts to use some moral code, the lines are very blurry, and will get abused.

Pure democracy is not a good system for government. People sometimes choose the wrong thing. What if my neighbors assembled, voted, and decided to burn down my house because I was viewed as some sort of moral threat? Minority rights need to be protected.

Your example of the drunk man is flawed in that it…

It’s just an example. No metaphor is perfect, but I hope you realize the basic points I’m trying to bring across. Government should maintain fairness and protect liberty. Without that liberty, no righteousness can exist.