Our government already does legislate morality in many ways. In fact, many laws are based upon upholding moral laws. Our laws regarding murder, theft, stealing, killing, defrauding, and misrepresenting all reflect the moral values of The Ten Commandments. We attempt to legislate morality in ways that are generally advantageous to our freedom, safety, and well-being. However, problems arise in the interpretation of these laws. Furthermore, our laws also guarantee both the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. So, we are left with even more open interpretation on how all of these issues mesh together. Some people (voicing their freedom of speech) believe that freedom of religion means that religion shouldn’t be allowed to influence government policy while others believe that it means that the state will not dictate a religion (such as a state church). I believe that our founding fathers instituted the best possible form of government (democracy), although it is still an imperfect human government.
Although the Bible clearly condemns adultery and homosexuality as sin, we have no laws against these things. This is because of the fine line between morality and freedom. For one person, a particular law may be upholding his morality, but to another person it infringes upon his personal choices. This is further complicated since one person’s moral values and definition of liberty is often not the same as the next person’s. Personally, I have no doubt that homosexuality is a sin. However, I’m not sure that we should have a law that bans homosexuality, because this could be an infringement on one’s personal liberty. Similarly, I believe that Christianity is the only true faith, but we shouldn’t make other faiths illegal. This not only violates the First Amendment, but I would certainly never want the government to make Christianity illegal.
On the other hand, I also have no doubt that abortion is a sin, and it violates the commandment against murder. In my view, if we have a law against murder (which we do), then that law already applies to abortion as well.
We need to preserve law and order while simultaneously preserving our personal liberty. It seems that I’m drawing the line where one person’s actions infringe directly upon another person’s liberty. An act of murder (abortion or otherwise), theft, etc. by one person harms another person, so we need laws for these things. However, if two gay people want to live together, and even get “married,” then maybe we don’t need a law against this, as long as their situation doesn’t directly hurt anyone else.
So, I believe that we can legislate some, but not all, morality. Personally, I tend to lean toward the Libertarian view, that government’s role is to ensure liberty, but that the Church should guide us on moral choices. In general, I think that we have too many laws already. For example, if it’s not a crime to drink alcohol, and prohibition didn’t seem to work anyway, then I’m not sure that we need a law against using marijuana. Maybe it would be better to legalize it, regulate it like we do alcohol, and collect taxes on it in the same way as well.