Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wacky Wednesday--You Can’t Legislate Morality

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

~Legislating morality is just another way of teaching someone that might makes right. Morality is just a personal opinion, not the basis of law.
~Morality presupposes religion, and there is no official religion of these United States.
~Furthermore, people have the expressly protected freedom to choose and act upon their religious beliefs.
~Hence legislating morality entails curtailing expressly protected religious liberties in the First Amendment.
~You can’t make people good by passing laws.
~It’s wrong to impose your personal beliefs on other people.
~Goodness is a matter of internal restraint, and external restraints cannot impart internal restraints.
~Look at something like the 18th Amendment.
It’s failure should show you that people can’t be made good through the use of law.
~It doesn’t work, because moral laws are generally unenforceable.

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