nikolai_42
Well-known member
While thinking - albeit briefly - about the almost staggering numbers of those who call themselves Christians that believe the legal definition of marriage should be rewritten by Congress and/or the SCOTUS, it became quickly apparent to me that the political/legal route by which this has gained support is in contrast to the moral/religious basis upon which many still oppose the move. In other words, there has come a growing rift between private belief and public life and policy. That tension has become so great now that the secularism that seems to be ingrained into the American experience (private and public) has forced many (I believe) to have to make a choice. If we (meaning the secularists and supportive Christians) believe that there is political and legal justification for supporting such a thing, then we must make that declaration. And on such an issue - morality either has to be a non-issue or it has to be compromised (speaking from a biblical perspective).
Many will say this is an issue in which right of private conscience is being defended. They may claim that it is a matter of a fight to the death to support someone to believe what they want - in spite of disagreeing with them. But when that becomes something more than just a definition of freedom of speech, the whole foundation of the Republic rattles on its foundations. Inherent in the idea of civilization is order and government. Order implies some basic definition of morality - but if only a private morality, then there can be no sense of right or wrong beyond offending another's private morality. So murder and rape and robbery are still considered crimes - but only because they impinge on another person's rights. Take away the grounding of law in a moral sense of decency and correctness and you create the possibility of having men who are permitted to act in the worst of ways - so long as it doesn't offend another individual.
So it is that it seems that that moral law has been done away with in favor of a basic sense of "Don't harm anyone". But was that what the Founders of the nation intended?
The oft-quoted line in the Declaration of Independence should provoke some thought :
We often hear of the use of the Creator reference and that men have the right to pursuit of Happiness...but it seems to me that some consideration of the term "endowed" is useful.
Asked what "endow" means and the definition commonly given will be simply "give". That right there is a recognition of a grant of something beyond the capacity of mankind to define on its own - because what is given comes from outside himself (be definition). But a degradation of language doesn't serve us very well. Because an endowment carries weight with it that implies responsibility for a great trust. A gift that can be abused (i.e. used in the wrong way as defined by the gift-giver). Since it carries benefits, abuse of them necessarily implies penalties. Not penalties of law, necessarily, but penalties suffered under the hand of the One who so distributed these gifts.
But if men were to generally recognize this, then the proper thing to do when forming the laws of the land would be to enshrine those gifts (rights) so as to keep those under the law from debasing and corrupting the use of those rights. In short - morality.
So to those who wish to say one cannot legislate morality, I say that may be true in a practical sense. If one wants to murder, there is nothing in the law hamstringing murder - but that doesn't prevent us from punishing the murderer. Likewise, where immediate impingement upon another (possibly unwilling party) is not obvious (as in the case of so-called "gay marriage"), the question should still be one of upholding the morality which attends the rights and freedoms given. A people can only mock the Creator for so long before that people is wholly given over to the debased use of that which the Creator has endowed those people with. The law itself may not step in and say "no further", but there is no doubt that the offended Creator most certainly will.
Many will say this is an issue in which right of private conscience is being defended. They may claim that it is a matter of a fight to the death to support someone to believe what they want - in spite of disagreeing with them. But when that becomes something more than just a definition of freedom of speech, the whole foundation of the Republic rattles on its foundations. Inherent in the idea of civilization is order and government. Order implies some basic definition of morality - but if only a private morality, then there can be no sense of right or wrong beyond offending another's private morality. So murder and rape and robbery are still considered crimes - but only because they impinge on another person's rights. Take away the grounding of law in a moral sense of decency and correctness and you create the possibility of having men who are permitted to act in the worst of ways - so long as it doesn't offend another individual.
So it is that it seems that that moral law has been done away with in favor of a basic sense of "Don't harm anyone". But was that what the Founders of the nation intended?
The oft-quoted line in the Declaration of Independence should provoke some thought :
We often hear of the use of the Creator reference and that men have the right to pursuit of Happiness...but it seems to me that some consideration of the term "endowed" is useful.
Asked what "endow" means and the definition commonly given will be simply "give". That right there is a recognition of a grant of something beyond the capacity of mankind to define on its own - because what is given comes from outside himself (be definition). But a degradation of language doesn't serve us very well. Because an endowment carries weight with it that implies responsibility for a great trust. A gift that can be abused (i.e. used in the wrong way as defined by the gift-giver). Since it carries benefits, abuse of them necessarily implies penalties. Not penalties of law, necessarily, but penalties suffered under the hand of the One who so distributed these gifts.
But if men were to generally recognize this, then the proper thing to do when forming the laws of the land would be to enshrine those gifts (rights) so as to keep those under the law from debasing and corrupting the use of those rights. In short - morality.
So to those who wish to say one cannot legislate morality, I say that may be true in a practical sense. If one wants to murder, there is nothing in the law hamstringing murder - but that doesn't prevent us from punishing the murderer. Likewise, where immediate impingement upon another (possibly unwilling party) is not obvious (as in the case of so-called "gay marriage"), the question should still be one of upholding the morality which attends the rights and freedoms given. A people can only mock the Creator for so long before that people is wholly given over to the debased use of that which the Creator has endowed those people with. The law itself may not step in and say "no further", but there is no doubt that the offended Creator most certainly will.