(Im)moral Majority

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. While this isn't exactly unusual, I haven't really been able to write for a while (as I'm sure you've noticed). I guess the last post I made where I let my brain goop fall onto the blog helped out a lot, because I finally have something worth while to talk about.

One of the main things that's been on my mind for the past few weeks is just how many people out there confuse their moral and political stances. Most of the opposition to things like the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc. is always based on a moral ground versus a political one.

This confuses me.

We'll use abortion as an example for the sake of discussion. Personally, I am against abortion. I don't think it's a good option to do, unless we're talking about the most extreme of cases. To me, the product of rape is not a good reason to abort a baby. Now, if the giving of birth would put the mother at risk of death - and we're talking a high risk here - then I'm alright with it. If it's going to be a stillborn, go for it. Anything else? Give it up for adoption. Someone out there is bound to want the baby, even if you don't.

Politically, however, my stance is quite different. I am all for having abortion be legal when it comes to my political stances. I am a huge proponent of individual freedom, and a big part of that is the freedom of choice. Just because I think that the act is morally reprehensible, that doesn't mean that I think our government should be able to infringe on the rights of others to choose. Everybody should have the right to make their own choices, even if we don't necessarily agree with them.

A lot of people talk about America being the land of the free, and wax philosophical about how many rights and liberties we have as a people. More and more, I'm finding that this simply isn't the case. I understand the moral dilemmas that people must be facing when it comes time to vote on what should and should not be illegal, but at the end of the day, is someone else getting an abortion really affecting you personally in any way, shape, or form? No, it isn't, so why should your right to disagree with the decision supersede the right of another to make a choice on their own?

This argument can go deeper than just with abortions or stem cell research, by the way. It can be applied to just about any law out there that is wholly irrational. Case in point, here in the state of Maryland, it is technically illegal to perform or receive oral sex. This is the truth. Don't believe me? Click here for more information on that law, as well as several others that don't make any sense.

Now, I'm not saying that I am for people going around and giving/receiving oral sex all willy-nilly, but at the same time, why is this even on our law books? What catastrophic event could have possibly happened that caused the law makers to sit down and say "Hey, we should outlaw blowjobs!"

All too often, the laws that prohibit us from choosing are coming from the religious Right. While I have my beliefs - many of which I have gone into detail about on this very blog - I don't use those as a basis for my political stances. I am not one to sit there and try to lobby Congress or whatever to pass a law based entirely on what I believe is right and wrong. Instead, I try and remember the very rights that were laid down by the Constitution of the United States.

A lot of people - particularly those heavily involved in the Church - are quick to say that this country was founded on Christian beliefs and values. Alas, this isn't really the case. The country was founded on an idea; the idea that every person is equal in the eyes of God, and that every person should have the freedom to basically do whatever they wanted to do. If that meant worshiping God in their own way, or believing firmly that the Universe was belched out by demon lizards from dimension Z, or even choosing not to believe in a higher power altogether, then so be it. This country was formed with the ideal that we all have the freedom to choose our own path without anybody telling us different.

Where did we go wrong?

I'd love to go more into this, but as I write this entry, I find myself pressed for time. Maybe later, but probably not, as I will have moved past this topic and onto something else that I want to talk about, so I'm going to use what time I have available to continue pressing my point.

I don't think that I can stress enough that just because you feel something is morally wrong, that doesn't mean it should be made illegal. I'm sure that each and every last one of you perform activities that others feel are morally incorrect, be it enjoying a few beers on the weekend, or smoking cigarettes, or lighting off firecrackers in the dead of night, or teaching your children about guns, and so on. If you participate in the listed activities - or even ones that other people have told you about before that they find are not right or they are not comfortable with - then you, too, are at risk of having someone else tell you how to live and what is good for you.

I know the things that are good for me, but not necessarily for other people. There are things out there that I feel are good for others, and strongly feel that they should indulge in more often. Reading, for example. But does that mean that my feelings on the topic are correct? Absolutely not. They are, at the end of the day, simply opinions, and I'm sure we've all heard the comparisons of opinions to a certain part of the anatomy.

Listen: We live in a country where freedom is supposed to be our top priority, and honestly? That sometimes means allowing people to say and do things that we may not agree with. After all, it's their choice to say and do these things, and ours to not participate. That doesn't mean that we need to tell these people what is and isn't right. Let them figure it out!

In the spirit of knowing that no matter what you say, someone somewhere along the line before you said it better, allow me to close with my absolute favorite quote from Voltaire:

"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it."