Steven Waldman on the case for imposing religious views on others. -- Beliefnet.com

Steven Waldman on the case for imposing religious views on others. -- Beliefnet.com

This guy tries to make a good argument, but the problem is that he's not arguing it properly. He's trying to say that any vote from morality is supposed to be wrong, but that's not the case. The problem is with votes based upon moral (or more accurately, religious) principles that adversely affects other people who don't share that belief. A law that is passed due to religious ideals that helps people is never going to be wrong... unless it also unduely hurts other people. If the issue is an article of faith that isn't carried by someone else, it would be morally wrong to force that person to do that by the force of law. If, for instance, I had a religion where I thought that nobody should NOT have sex with their dog (I don't, it's just a metaphor), and I tried to pass a law that said that everyone should have to have sex with a dog once a week, that would be morally wrong, not so much because of the sex with a dog thing (which I happen to find rather wrong, anyway), but because I'd be forcing other people to do something they think is wrong. I know that's an extreme example, but that's what legislating an article of faith is. If the other person doesn't share that article, it's wrong to force them to act a certain way. For an article of faith to be legislatable, there should be compelling SOCIAL, CIVIC, or ECONOMIC reasons for it to be passed. Then, if someone doesn't hold the same faith as you, there is still a compelling reason for that person to accept the judgement of the law. It is perfectly fine for your faith to guide what you want to accomplish in the political sphere, but for things to really be political, they have to have good social grounding, rather than just divisive religious ideals. That's what the problem is with legislating faith is, because not everyone has the same faith. In one country, though, everyone is tied together by the social fabric and new laws should be argued from that perspective, and not from a religious one.