The struggle between the law and morality is one that causes great confusion and uncertainty. Often, the law is viewed as a stand in for morality: a corporeal placeholder for an incorporeal ideal. In this situation, the state is the benevolent deity, working all things together for our good, and creating a law that will guide us to a place of higher morality.
Is possessing an item immoral?
Is a certain behavior injudicious?
Check the law. It holds the answer.
The problem is the law has never been a substitute for morality, and it can never replace morality in one's life. It does not create morals, it merely acts on what a people believe morals to be. Its authority comes not from a place beyond the reach of man, but from man himself, in all his flaws and failures. At its best, the law can only be an approximation of morality, a rough estimate by those who drafted it. At its worst, the law can be an immoral dragon devouring those who have the misfortune of not having a say in the process of governing.
In the United States, we have a long history of approving behaviors and rules that no reasonable person could find morally acceptable...by standards of today or of the past. The law did not suddenly become a stand-in for morality once a few egregious errors were cured, nor will it become its avatar in another hundred years when a few more errors are disposed.
Because the law cannot create morality, we must be careful not to over legislate in the vain efforts of finally being the ones who don’t make the same mistakes as our predecessors. Instead, the law should be narrowly tailored to fit its role and purpose: to keep man out of a state of war.
It is said my right to extend my fist ends at your face. This is where the law comes into play, and where it finds its purpose. The law is not here to regulate individuals personal morality: it is instead here to protect individuals from the improper invasion of another. The law is not one's god any more than it is not one's mother. It is here to foster peace and cooperation among the people of its jurisdiction. If your actions do not harm anyone other than yourself, the law has no business meddling in your affairs. Once your actions leap beyond yourself and into the affairs of others, then the law has found its proper place.
This is a fine line to walk. Swing too far one direction and you have lawlessness and man is thrown back into a state of war. Swing too far the other and you are living in a defacto religious theocracy.
However, one thing is clear. The law cannot be a substitute for morality.
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