Law and Morality

One of the strangest things you hear today is that you shouldn’t “legislate morality,” or that our laws shouldn’t “impose morality.”

a.       People who say that clearly don’t know what the law is, or why we have civil laws in the first place.

                                                               i.      They probably don’t know what morality is either.

b.       So let’s make it really clear:

                                                               i.      Morality is just our insights about what’s good for people, and what’s bad for people

c.       So, for instance, take our highways.

                                                               i.      It’s a basic moral insight that mobility transportation – being able to visit and trade with people from far away – is something that’s generally good for people. So all advanced societies have laws about how to build and maintain roads.

                                                             ii.      And it’s also a basic moral insight that deaths from car crashes are bad for people. So we also have traffic safety laws.

d.       Again, morality just means our convictions about what’s good for people and not good for people – and laws are just an attempt to put those convictions into practice by promoting good things and limiting bad things. Pretty simple.

e.       Notice too that you don’t have to be a Christian to have moral convictions. Everybody can see that certain things are good for people and certain things are bad for people.

                                                               i.      Everybody knows that eating rocks isn’t good for people; neither is ignorant prejudice. Neither are mass murders or store-looters.

It’s simple, if our laws aren’t based on what we know is morally just, then we won’t have just laws. Then we won’t have a just society.

i. Don’t give into the cowardice of pretending not to have any moral convictions when the time for political action comes.

ii. God has written a law on our hearts. We know right from wrong. If that isn’t expressed in the laws we enact as a society, then we’ll have to answer to Him.