Can there be morally neutral laws?
WARNING TO TREVOR: extreme social conservativism below!
The whole debate over homosexual marriage boils down to whether or not America should have moral laws, or morally neutral laws. The marriage admendment is about legislating morality. So here are my thoughts:
There can never be a morally neutral law. A law forbids and affirms certain actions. If a law forbids an action, then it is equivalent to saying that this action is wrong. Affirming an action claims that it is right. Ethics deals with the rightness and wrongness of action. You cannot use the terms right and wrong without working from a moral framework.
Therefore, this idea of not legislating morality is impossible. What about private as opposed to public morality? This is the classic argument: as long as you don't infringe on anyone else's freedom, then you are a-okay. I don't think most people that say this really mean it. One example:
Suppose one person, Smith, wishes to kill and eat another person, Jones. If Jones is fully willing to do this (for whatever reason), and signs a legal document agreeing to this, then it's entirely personal morality. The state cannot intervene, except to confirm that all parties were consenting adults. This is not that far from reality, as bizzarly disgusting as it is. There was a real case in Germany similar to this hypothetical case recently.
With this said, I don't support the Marriage Admendment. We already have the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton, that affirms the concept that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is enough for for the importance of this issue.
The whole debate over homosexual marriage boils down to whether or not America should have moral laws, or morally neutral laws. The marriage admendment is about legislating morality. So here are my thoughts:
There can never be a morally neutral law. A law forbids and affirms certain actions. If a law forbids an action, then it is equivalent to saying that this action is wrong. Affirming an action claims that it is right. Ethics deals with the rightness and wrongness of action. You cannot use the terms right and wrong without working from a moral framework.
Therefore, this idea of not legislating morality is impossible. What about private as opposed to public morality? This is the classic argument: as long as you don't infringe on anyone else's freedom, then you are a-okay. I don't think most people that say this really mean it. One example:
Suppose one person, Smith, wishes to kill and eat another person, Jones. If Jones is fully willing to do this (for whatever reason), and signs a legal document agreeing to this, then it's entirely personal morality. The state cannot intervene, except to confirm that all parties were consenting adults. This is not that far from reality, as bizzarly disgusting as it is. There was a real case in Germany similar to this hypothetical case recently.
With this said, I don't support the Marriage Admendment. We already have the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton, that affirms the concept that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is enough for for the importance of this issue.
posted by Joshua Frear at 12:54 PM
|
<< Home