Should We Legislate Morality? Essay

America has been built on freedom throughout the years. Freedom to speak, freedom to choose, freedom to worship, and freedom to do just about anything you want within that of the law. America’s law has been designed to protect and preserve these freedoms. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. It assures citizens that the federal government shall not restrict freedom of worship. It specifically prohibits Congress from establishing an official, government supported church. Under The First Amendment, the federal government cannot require citizens to pay taxes to support a certain church, nor can people be prohibited from worshipping in any way they see fit. However, if a certain religion

The belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim that all of society's troubles - everything from AIDS to out-of-wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of God. This paper will look at different examples of how a god could be a bad thing and show that humans can create rules and morals all on their own. It will also touch upon the fact that doing good for the wrong reasons can also be a bad thing for the person.

Laws are guidelines to help keep a society in tact and to give some sort of structure for the people of the United States. Our founding fathers started these laws and gave the people a starting line to perfect and make changes to them. But is it possible that some laws overstep some boundaries? Throughout the years, America has changed for the good and for the bad. Even though it may take time, we, as a country are making changes that people from the past would have never thought would happen. For example, back then, it was wrong and frowned upon for one gender to love their same gender, or for a girl to want to be a boy and vice versa. But we see today, though some may still not agree, a great amount of the population has started accepting

First, a short recap on American history. During the 17th century, in England the official religion was Anglican, there were few who opposed his majesty and practiced other religions as there were punishments to these actions. Later on, these religious groups were given the opportunity to practice their faith in the New World as colonies of England. Finally, the pilgrims, puritans, Lutherans, and even Catholics had escaped religious persecution they faced in England; in the new found land they could freely practice their beliefs. Therefore, when declaring independence from England, the founding fathers wrote “freedom of religion” in the Bill of Rights and implemented a separation of church and state in order to avoid the government to influence the country based on religious convictions. In an article by Doug Weaver, Weaver references a book by Frank Lambert entitled “Separation of Church and State:

America today is permeated with natural law. Our founders were subscribers to natural law and believed that man’s inner morality can lead to sustaining a civil society. The forefathers of America were from different denominations that ranged from Presbyterian to Catholism. Some were even Deists. Even though their denominations varied, they all united under the idea that their Creator was the source of their reason (Levin 2009, 26). The result of these beliefs produced a religious liberty throughout the country. That liberty still stands today. Natural law, contrary to the thoughts of its non-supporters, does not make a country into a theocracy. Since God’s laws are universal, the creed of a person does not change the fact that they entitled to their God-given rights. The founders were extremely foresighted because they acknowledged that liberty is inseparable from religious liberty (Levin 2009, 29). Another example of how natural law is in America’s founding is the right for citizens to disobey man-made laws that tyrannical in nature. All laws that are not given by the consent of the governed have the potential to be overthrown. America’s Declaration of Independence even says that the people should go as far as overthrowing the government if it becomes too powerful (Levin

The relationship between the Church and State is completely different than what most American hoi polloi believe. One of two principles state that, the church should not govern “the things that are Caesar’s”. This principle means that there should be no church control on the actions of civil government. Jesus refused to take authority in a realm of civil government that had not been assigned to him by God. The second principle states that, the civil government should not govern “the things that are God’s”. This principle implies that every nation should allow freedom of religion, by which every person is free to follow whatever religion he or she chooses. The civil government should support and encourage churches and bond-fide religious groups in general. While civil government should not rule

In The Washington Post’s “Why Nothing is Wrong Anymore” by Meg Greenfield writes about all the alternatives used for “wrong.” In paragraph 5, while giving an example of “right and not necessarily unconstitutional,” she says, ‘It is legally permissible, therefore it is morally acceptable, possibly even good. But both as individuals and as a society we do things every day that we know to be wrong even though they may not fall within the class of legally punishable acts or tickets to eternal damnation.’ She asks whether something is morally acceptable just because it is legally permissible. The sale and consumption of alcohol is legal, but it shouldn’t be.

America was born out of revolution, a revolution to rid the states of an overpowering sovereign from a country where they had no representation. Therefore when writing the constitution the Founding Fathers were careful to avoid a strong centralised monarchical state that they felt would restrict the rights of the people of the United States to practice their religion and cultures freely. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" [1] This clearly states that there shall be no religious persecution, or any type of institution set up to restrict religion in the United States. America was and is supposed to be a society where everyone is equal no matter what his or her religion on social status

Ban animal cruelty! Give aid to the poor! Save the rainforests! Obey the law! As a human race we must strive to fulfill these commands, for they are our moral duties and obligations. Our obligation to morality sometimes leads to a dilemma. What happens when a law contradicts the morally right thing to do? Would it be moral to act illegally by breaking the law? No matter how drastic the measure, we are still required to act morally--even if one must break the law to do so. But why is it so important to be moral that one could justify something as serious as breaking the law?

It takes away an individual’s right of living their own life with their own desires, to give away the precious parts of their lives to live another life they would have never thought of living. It is discriminatory in the sense that one culture and society is undesirable about another and takes and action legally to do something that is humanly illegal. If one gives away their true self-identity, they give away much more than that. These individuals suffered mentally and physically due to these laws. The ethical question comes into this because one must consider whether for one person’s values and beliefs and superior or important over the other? Many questions come to one’s mind and the answers lays inside one person-an individual must place their selves in the shoe of the other to get the answers through their experiences.

Some may think that it is wrong that people should oppose the state's laws, and should just follow them, but then they will never get to have their own beliefs and never have a better understanding of themselves in the end.

Separation of church and state is a defined as, the understanding of the intent, and function of the Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise Clause. The Combination of church and state has been a topic that, many generations have struggled with for centuries. The first amendment of the constitution states that “Congress shall make no law about our religious beliefs, or prohibiting our free exercise of religion” If we put our faith in the constitution to define the founding father’s standpoint of separation of church and state, then we have definitely misinterpreted their stance on religion. Many people believe the reference to separation of church and state is in the original constitution, but the truth is, the references, often conceptualized and misinterpreted as intertwining with our religious freedom, but that is not the truth.

To be moral simply means to do what is right; however, doing what is right is easier said than done. Perhaps if one was a child, one would, to the best of their abilities, follow what his parents demand of him, this would constitute them as doing what is right. Now let us say that the child is an orphan, or does not believe what his parents say is right, should following them still be considered moral, or is it even up to him to decide? Perhaps the child has evolved past parenting all together and therefore needs no more guidance. Defining what is considered moral has now become much more complex. Sam Harris presents the same basic argument of morality in his book Letter to a Christian Nation, by applying it not to a child and his parents,

government to make us believe that we were the good side while they were the bad

These should be the only rules that may overrule a person's actions, for the more restricted a person's action becomes, the less likely it is that they'll submit to those restrictions. The reason morals may overrule a person's actions because these rules are justified. Without justification, there is no reason at all for people to obey the rules, for in their eyes, the rules would be arbitrary, and thus would lack any sort of authority over people.