Abortion 2: Why I don't support legislating morality

Legislating your morality, in case you haven't heard the term, is this: You believe something is morally wrong, because that's how you were raised, that's what your particular religion told you, or whatever. And so, you try to make legislation that makes this belief that you hold into a law that governs the hundreds of millions of people across this country.

It always happens with the best of intentions. But, at the core of it, it is fundamentally pushing your beliefs on people who don't necessarily believe the same.

I'm going to explain some of the reasons I oppose legislating this way. And in the next post, you'll see some of the things that I now believe should be legal, and why.

1. Vote as if you were the underdog.

Because someday you will be. A lot of times it's hard for white, Christian Americans to imagine what it's like to be the minority, but it's a good mental exercise here. If you're voting to make gay marriage illegal because of your religious beliefs, then think about this: What if some other religion were the majority, and they made straight marriage illegal? How would you feel, being denied the right to marry the person you love? Try to think about every vote from the perspective of the person it will be affecting.

Once again, when personal freedoms are limited based on one group's beliefs, all of freedom suffers. And because you can get away with it now, because you're the majority, is no excuse. Think always about how you would like to be treated if you were the minority. What if your particular belief, or life choice, were illegal? What if you were the "moral villain" because your beliefs differed from the ruling party? How would you feel? Remember the golden rule? Treat other people like you would like to be treated. It doesn't mean you have to agree with their beliefs. But defend their right to have that belief.

2) Think about the consequences

My favorite example here is prohibition. Some people thought that alcohol was the cause of all sorts of evil. So, rather than abstaining themselves, or showing a good example of moderation, they made legislation that made it illegal. Was the country a pious and holy place after that? No. Let's look at some consequences.

Organized crime. Al Capone. Murder. The crime rate doubled. The homicide rate jumped. A huge amount of tax money was spent on trying to enforce these laws, and fighting the resulting organized crime.

It was a huge mess. People went on drinking, but drinking unregulated bootleg or alcohol supplied by the bloody black market. People died. It was a failure. And it did very very little to make our country a better place, like the original legislators intended.

And yet we don't learn from this example. We still try to push legislation that can't be enforced on people who don't believe in the same morality that the legislation pushes. And all it really does is give power to the black market, waste our government resources, and make people do their deeds in fear.

So, I like to look at an issue this way. Are people going to stop doing this action if it's made illegal, or will it just push the action into black market territory? And if people are not going to stop the action because of the legislation, what consequences will this legislation cause?


In the next section I'll talk about many specific examples, looked at under this set of filters. 1) Is this legislation discriminatory, and would I vote differently if I were the minority? and 2) Will this legislation simply provide more negative consequences than it solves?