John,

So where do you draw the line between not “mingling religious influence with civil government” and legislating morality?

First, I think it is important to understand the context of the scripture you sited. In the Institute Manual, the historical background is as follows:

A general assembly of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was held at Kirtland, Ohio, on 17 August 1835 to formally accept the collection of revelations to be published as the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. After the priesthood quorums and then the congregation unanimously accepted the revelations, “Elder William W. Phelps arose and read an article prepared by Oliver Cowdery, on marriage. This was on vote ordered to be published also in the volume with the revelations. Then President Oliver Cowdery arose and read an article, ‘Of Governments and Laws in General,’ and this likewise was ordered by vote to be published with the book of revelations. Neither of these articles was a revelation to the Church.” (Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, 2:30.)
…
“It should be noted that in the minutes, and also in the introduction to this article on government, the brethren were careful to state that this declaration was accepted as the belief, or ‘opinion’ of the officers of the Church, and not as a revelation, and therefore does not hold the same place in the doctrines of the Church as do the revelations.” (Smith and Sjodahl, Commentary, p. 852.)

While I could try to argue the case that this section is merely an outline of early Church leaders’ opinions we have canonized it, thus classifying its contents as doctrine of the Church. So where does that leave us?

Well, “separation of church and state” is an important principle. The LDS church (or any other church) should have no official say in government matters, and vice versa. But does that mean that we can’t have influence? Does that mean that we should not try to fight for the beliefs we hold to be true? Isn’t that the point of politics—to lobby and vote for legislation that you think is ideal for you and others?

Dave posted earlier this year about a related article. The second paragraph illustrates what I’ve argued several times before: in our founding documents there is no such thing as “separation of church and state”. This term, coined by Jefferson, found its origins in Jefferson’s personal correspondence, and did not become a widespread notion for almost a century later.

People who dislike conservative Christians promoting their own agendas are hypocrites that need to understand that they’re doing the same thing. If such a person is for same-sex marriage, good for them! But don’t go crying foul play when an LDS person wants to ban such a practice. In a democractic system (which is actually a Republic) each person has the right to lobby and vote for such legislation that they think is best. If such legislation is concerning a moral principle, and happens to be in line with religious beliefs they profess, so what?

And whose morality do we legislate?

God’s.

Dan,

How do you reconcile the above with what Joseph Smith said when he said: “Teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves.” At what point does society still control our actions?

Brother Brigham further elaborated on such a statement when he said “I say, let them govern themselves by a Republican system of government”. Joseph was not implying self-rule. To be sure, there were countless instances of people being brought before the councils of church government to make such accusations as theft, slander, libel, and disruption. There was a system established to maintain order and execute judgment, even though Joseph had taught correct principles so that people could “govern themselves”. This draws back to the 2nd Nephi system of acting or being acted upon. If we obey established law, we are free to act. If we disobey, we will be acted upon by those responsible for discipline and enforcement of the law. Additionally, Joseph meant what he said regarding “correct principles”. Such principles were in accordance with what God would label as “morality”.

Furthermore, conservatives tend to, when discussing legislating morality, avoid any talk of legislating business (the whole capitalism shpiel).

Welcome to our free-enterprise capitalist nation. I much prefer Joseph’s method of handling such filth: destroy and subdue. That’s the approach he took with suppressing the libelous printing press in Nauvoo. Ultimately such an action resulted in his death, but the approach taken was one I would prefer, though our laws don’t exactly permit it. And since we’re not allowed to root out such garbage, the best we can do is not patronize them. Local government, where the bulk of civic authority should reside, has the ability to reject such businesses. My mother tells a great story about a boy in our ward, barely 12 years old, who stood up in a City Council meeting where an “adult entertainment” shop was trying to get permission to enter the city. The arguments had been persuasive, and the council was about to approve their request. The boy rose up and reprimanded the council for allowing such a business into our nice city, especially where he and his siblings walked by coming home from school each day. Stunned, the council unanimously voted against the business.

That doesn’t mean that it is a good idea. If you’re trying to force your beliefs on others, however good they may be (remember the war in heaven) its always a bad idea.

But it’s not force. It’s the democratic process. We each get to vote however we want. I base my vote on my religiously-backed moral opinion, as would an atheist liberal base his vote on his secularist opinion. Nobody is forcing anything - it’s each of us taking part in the democratic process to voice our opinion and lobby for what we think is best.

You can’t legislate morality.

So people should be able to copulate in the park? Sell pornography to children? Gratify themselves in public bathrooms? Murder a misbehaving child? Of course we can legislate morality. It’s just like Elder Oaks said: “…a high proportion of all legislation has a moral base”.

Once you’re policing sexual behavior, what’s next?

There has to be some sort of policing of such behavior, otherwise the examples I mentioned above would be free game.

…the whole point of living life is to become a good person on our own.

Right, and the whole point of God’s commandments is to learn to become like Him. But when we break the commandments, there is a punishment affixed. It’s the two edged sword. We can’t chalk up crimes and atrocious moral sins to “oh, he’s just learning how to live life.. he’ll be a good person eventually!”

Just because something is morally wrong, it does not follow that it should be legally wrong.

Here we get into the differences (and similarities) between malum en se and malum prohibitum. Things that are malum en se are naturally understood to be bad—murder, rape, incest, those kind of things. Acts that are malum prohibitum aren’t inherently evil, but are prohitibed law—speeding, jaywalking, or truancy.

So the vox populi is what determines the laws affixed to both types of “bad”. We legislate morality (malum en se) as well as things that have no moral component.

To make it worse, you say that this would work according to ‘God’s morality’, which everyone has an different interpretation of.

Hence the problem. Everybody has different opinions and interpretations. I speak pretty boldly on my blog, because these are my opinions and beliefs. I, too, may be wrong (though I’m not!). But in our democratic system, we all get together thinking we each know what’s best, and then vote it out. Majority rules.

If you don’t want to live under Shari’a law, you need to accept that you won’t get to make everyone else live your moral law. Otherwise you’re saying that everyone gets to live by the dictates of your conscience.

As long as my beliefs are held by the majority of Americans, this is accurate. If I’m in the minority, however, then I either have to obey the laws established by the minority or leave the country (so is that why you moved to Australia? :)).

Ask yourself: if the majority of Americans were Evangelical Christians, would it be all right for them to outlaw the LDS Church?

Nobody is suggesting banning a religious entity entirely. But if a majority drafted legislation that opposed one’s religious views (polygamy ring a bell, anybody?), then that group of people would have to obey. Again, the majority rules. Some might not like it, but it’s what we’ve got.

But we purposely make the laws as permissive as possible and leave people alone if they’re not doing anything obviously harmful.

In an ideal world, yes. But have you ever read a piece of legislation? Any bill on any topic is bound to be a tome in size, micromanaging every possibility down to the T. We’ve got laws, taxes, and policies for everything under the sun…

We don’t have societies so that the strong can get what they want.

Tell that to Bush and his neocon buddies.

We have societies so that even people in tiny minorities (like Latter-day Saints) can have the freedom to do pretty much what they want, free from the tyranny of the majority.

Are you, then, in favor of repealing the legislation banning polygamy (since you used LDS as an example)? I highly doubt the Church would reinstitute such a practice if the law was axed, but the Church suffered from the “tyranny of the majority” in almost every way possible during the mid 1800’s—so much so that they were forced to flee and establish their own society. How’s that for letting the “strong get what they want”?