A part of morality consists of controlling and channeling sexual energy into a positive, uplifting, and stable force. Societies that have been unable to do so have historically never risen to become great nations or they've become unstable and collapsed. Our society is in a transitional period wherein the traditional values that have controlled and channeled sexual energy into a stable social structure have become unfocused for lack of a moral code to guide us. This is a time of decadence and moral decay. If we are to come through it and survive as a viable culture we need to make some radical changes, first in our spiritual values, then in our cultural institutions and legal system.
Recently making the national news was the next legal argument resulting from the legalization of abortion. Now, it seems there are men that want to divorce themselves from any responsibility for fathering children. Their argument is that they didn’t ‘set out’ to produce a child, they only set out to have sex…and what that produced isn’t a baby, it’s only a cluster of cells. In the terms of our law that was the next logical step.
The blanket legalization of abortion based on a woman’s right to control her body was a bad ruling. It has been responsible for the killing of millions of the most innocent lives simply because they were inconvenient for their irresponsible mothers. Now, men (and I hate to use the words ‘mothers’ and ‘men’ in describing these people..) want to be released from any responsibility from their sexual actions too.
An unborn child is a child, just ask any mother waiting to meet her new son or daughter. Why ‘right to lifers’ feel the need to defend them is completely understandable to me. While I don’t agree with some of their tactics, or all of their platform, I respect the fact that they revere the lives of God’s children. Fighting for the rights of unborn children is a noble fight. It is a legal and a cultural fight and it should be fought on those grounds. Those that kill doctors or blow up abortion clinics only damage the positions of honest, sincere people when they commit murder themselves. These extremists see the struggle as a war and framing it in those terms only inflames a legitimate struggle in very damaging ways. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who engages in it.
There are two other areas involving the sexual aspects of our nature where legal arguments have been made that could potentially change the landscape of our society. The first is more philosophical than legal, but could have profound legal ramifications on the fabric of our society. The argument that homosexual behavior is determined genetically or bio-chemically before birth is a precursor to arguments involving pedophiles and those who engage in sexual acts with animals. The homosexual community is intent on making the argument that their sexual orientation is predetermined to remove any personal responsibility from their behavior. Once the legal precedent has been established that sexual orientation is based on these grounds it will only be a matter of time before it is used as a defense for any deviant sexual act.
The second area involving the sexual and reproductive aspects of our nature is in changing the definition of a marriage from being one man and one woman to being open ended. A legal argument, proposed on constitutional grounds, is being simultaneously attempted in many states by groups wanting to give homosexuals the right to marry. Once a legal precedent has been established here it would open the door to ‘group marriages’ like polygamy and other social experiments.
All of these are moral arguments that have crossed over into the legal realm. All of them have the potential to destabilize and weaken the fabric of our society. None of them are rights originally guaranteed by the constitution but, given the overstepping of authority that the Supreme Court has engaged in the last few years, the court could very well interpret them to be constitutional rights as it has in the case of abortion.
The law is logical, if not moral, in its application. Once a legal precedent has been established it can be used in any case where a similar argument may be made. That’s why it is important to have thoughtful and moral men and women on the bench. It’s also why the legal ramifications of every decision a court makes should be thoroughly considered before a ruling is handed down.
With no moral compass, like the Ten Commandments, to guide us there is no social cohesion and no telling what kind of free-for-all society we could end up with. Because its’ citizens aren’t self-policing, the only force that can keep such a society in place is physical force. Where there is no moral code that guides its citizens, the void is usually filled by a strong, over-reaching government to bring external stability where none exists internally. That’s a lesson of history…
In many ways, we are already on that ‘slippery slope’ that we hear so much about. The irony of all of this is that every time the court guarantees another ‘freedom’ it relaxes the concept of personal responsibility; it chips away at the moral code that has held our society together and it takes us one step closer to a totalitarian state.
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