REDEFINING MORALITY

“That is immoral”. These words are used frequently by many of us to express our opinion of a wrong deed, but every individual tends to define morality from their specific point of view. The first definition in Webster’s dictionary defines morality as “conforming to the rules of right conduct”. If no two people share the exact view of right conduct, it is especially difficult for a country to embrace a single standard of morality that fits everyone. Nevertheless, a nation must have a standard of right conduct, to ensure that it defines morality in a manner, which provides just laws for all citizens.

Our founding fathers were careful to create a nation, which recognized that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were rights endowed by a Creator. It logically follows that the best laws of a nation would be laws, which ensure those unalienable rights, while also recognizing they conform to the wishes of the Creator.

The founding fathers also understood the potential hazards of religious intolerance in the establishment of laws. The First Amendment of our Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Our founding fathers, through their personal writings, provided additional evidence to indicate their belief that, while morality should not be tied to a single religious viewpoint, it was necessary to recognize the goodness and justice flowing from the laws of a Creator. For the purpose of this book, we will refer to the morality envisioned by our founding fathers as “faith-based morality”.

For most of its existence, this country has been fortunate in having branches of government, which generally conformed to faith-based morality when enacting laws, and also when administering and adjudicating our Constitution and laws.

However, beginning in the 1960’s, cultural changes occurred, which brought with them a challenge to faith-based morality. The challenges were often more subtle than direct. Groups, who believe in a morality other than faith-based, utilize narrow interpretations of our Constitution and laws to further their arguments. Generally, these interpretations depend on those parts of the Constitution that protect individual freedom, even if such freedoms are not in furtherance of the “general welfare” of citizens as contemplated in the Preamble to the Constitution.

The cultural changes of the 1960’s brought a rebellion against many of the traditional values, which had been in existence from the founding of this country. One such example during that time frame is that individuals and groups began pushing for a right that now permits vulgarity in language heard on television and in movies. The 1960’s also brought a more open approach to sex and obscenity. Groups who defend that type action and communication do so by arguing that such rights are provided in the Constitution and in our laws. They are correct in that narrow view of Constitutional rights. But they choose to ignore that those types of rights do not accomplish a furtherance of the general welfare, and that such rights are not justified from a faith-based morality viewpoint. Rather, they are justified by a different definition of morality, which in this book will be referred to as “secular morality”.