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ORIGINAL: MISTRAD
My point is simply this…why should government be involved in defining any personal relationship?
As jackbauer said, it’s because the People feel that the government SHOULD be involved in defining certain personal relationships.
The vast majority of Americans believe in the separation of Church and State, e.g. the Pope or Ayatollah running the country.
But only a fringe minority believe in the separation of State and faith-based morality. Most Americans have strong feelings about relationships and sex that are based on the christian thought, even if they are not religious or even Christian.
Polygamy and homosexual marriage are just two examples.
–How many Americans think it should be legal for a grown man to marry his father? Or a grown man to marry his mother?
–How about indecent exposure laws, how many Americans think the government should make it legal for people to walk around naked?
–Or pornography, how many Americans think that sex and nudity should be allowed on prime-time television?
Most Americans oppose the above.
Yet the same sort of criticism can be applied to these laws, i.e. what right does the government have to dictate the relationship between two consenting adults (father and son, or mother and son)? What right does the government have to dictate how much clothing you must wear? What right does the government have to ban certain programs from television?
Faith-based morality has always had a role in our legal system, and probably will have a role in the foreseeable future.
