During and after the Bush election victory in 2004, much has been written and ranted about regarding American "values," and "morality." Moral relativism has been blasted because, it is claimed, all morals are not created equal. Can you guess if such views include your morals or theirs?
The simple truth is that what is considered to moral versus amoral changes over time and space. Morality simply is not a constant.
Another simple truth is that morality and the force of law, in a free country like the U.S.A., are not one and the same.
Was slavery moral? Our Founding Fathers and the majority of the population at the time this great country was founded allowed it. While some did not like it, it was encouraged as slaves help build America's agricultural powerhouse. Slavery in America was considered fine for several hundred years. How about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of "Separate, But Equal"?
Is smoking tobacco moral? Native Americans certainly enjoyed it, and tobacco was smoked across the world. Many religious people thought it was evil. Yet the money made growing tobacco built this nation. Like slavery, some of the Founding Fathers got rich with this controversial plant. Would God have created an immoral plant? If so, why? Didn't God think everything he created was good? If not, what about opium, marijuana/hemp, coca, psychotropic mushrooms, peyote or hemlock? Today, tobacco receives federal subsidies, is highly taxed and regulated, contains a health warning, and is legal, despite cries that it kills hundreds of thousands annually and the states even sued tobacco companies because the product is considered so bad. Is alcohol immoral since it was banned under a fairly recent Constitutional amendment? Jesus drank wine. Was Jesus immoral? The Christian Temperance movement said alcohol was immoral, yet when it was banned it inflicted such high violence throughout this nation that another amendment had to quickly pass to rescind the prior one.
Was it moral to deny the vote to women? It was allowed for a hundred years, even though half of the population was negatively impacted. Women in other countries don't have the right to vote today.
Islamic nations require women to cover themselves from head to toe, and many deny women an education and the right to vote, if voting is even allowed. Is that moral? Is Islam immoral?
Is it moral to use embryonic stem cells that are no longer needed or wanted by the "parents" to study and determine if they can save lives of children and adults the world over?
Is it moral to attack a nation that hasn't attacked us or even threatened us first? Is it okay to kill living children and adults in order to save American lives?
Is it moral for the state to grant legal rights and benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples, yet deny them for homosexual couples? What if the heterosexual couple has no intention of having children or raising a family? What if the homosexual couple has children, from adoption, previous sexual relations with someone of the opposite sex or in vitro fertilization? If the law changes to grant them this legal right in the future, will it then be moral as happened with slavery, the forcible removal of Native Americans from their lands, the right of women to vote, etc.?
In the Old Testament, many figures of repute have slaves, have sexual relations with women who are not their wives, and have multiple wives. Was Abraham immoral, or is it immoral to deny polygamy to Mormons and others who find it acceptable today?
In a free nation, legislating morality is fraught with peril. Whose morality becomes the law? Your morality may not match mine, so why should either version of what's moral be imposed on all others under penalty of the law? Morality changes over time and from place to place. I'm sure the future will look at what is considered moral today and wonder how we could have been so unfair and immoral to have allowed certain actions to be the law of the land.
What should we do about the law and morality? The law should be limited to ensuring a fair playing field and to punish those whose actions harm others. As for your moral stance: embrace them, live them, teach them. But please don't impose them on me.