Firscherscherling said:
I think you are beginning to get it. That is exactly how I feel about it. As long as there is no victim, there should be no crime. Incest with minors is a crime. Incest between consenting adults is no one's business. Drug, alcohol, cigarette, caffeine use should not be criminal as long as there are no victims. If I want to shoot up in my living room that should be my business, not yours. When I shoot up and get behind the wheel of my car, then it becomes another issue. Beasitality involves the victimization of animals and is, therefore, a crime.
As I have said before, if you aren't ready for me to decide your behavior is immoral and should be illegal, then don't try to make mine illegal. Don't say that drugs should be illegal and then go down a beer.
And as to the whole 'its unnatural so it causes disease and should be illegal put forth by Sunstone and so many others, I say again, what about the unnatural sex acts you participate in? Let's take kissing. It is not a natural act, you can catch any number of diseases from it, so should it be illegal? How about oral sex? Yep, we'd better put a stop to that. Breasts are for feeding babies, so they should be used for nothing else. In fact, we should keep them covered at all times, especially during sex, Right Sun?
No, I don't think that I am getting it. You say that sex with minors is a crime. Yes today it is a crime. What is the moral basis for making incest a crime? inappropriate behavior with animals is a crime, today, but what is the moral bais for this to be a crime? Without some 'moral basis' aren't all laws then just a matter of someone deciding for someone else what is legal (as opposed to what is right and wrong).
I think that mabye you aren't getting it. In a civilized society who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? The people? The government? The rulers? Who determines what is a crime and what is not a crime?
As you said, "if you aren't ready for me to decide your behavior is immoral and should be illegal, then don't try to make mine illegal. Don't say that drugs should be illegal and then go down a beer"
I don't drink beer but.....
I am not deciding what is immoral or illegal, and neither are you. Up until now this was decided based on what was thought to be morally right and or morally wrong. If we remove morality from the equation, how 'will' we decide these things?
This is why I believe that you need some moral basis or code as the foundation for laws. For example if human life is indeed sacred, then the wanton taking of a human life should be called a crime. If on the other hand a human life is no more valuable than any other form of life then why would it be a 'crime' to take it?
In a Democratic republic such as our these things should be decided by the majority thru their duly elected representatives. In a country that based many of its laws on Judeo-Christian principles we had agreed to allow what God said about these things to be the moral basis of our jurisprudence. Now that we want to remove God from the public (and eventually private) domain we are facing a crisis in the bankruptcy of our moral values.
It is not the job of the Supreme Court of this land to make new laws. I believe that they have done just that with this ruling. I believe they have made a grave error in this matter.
While we may have cured the 'disease' of archaic sodomy laws, we have in the process weakened and undermined the basis for all laws.
This is not an elightened positon we have taken, it is a foolish one.
j
