Legalising our Morals - David Round

Mum cut an article out of The Press on Tuesday, 2 October 2007.  It's an important topic that David addresses here.  David is a very swtiched on Liberal thinker who writes regular (fortnightly?) columns for the press.  I had the honour of hearing him speak at the dinner after the ACT agm 2007.  He can be extremely humorous at times, but often just goes straight to the core of an issue without any jokes or funny stories.  This article is one of those.  Below is a short excerpt.

"Certainly, if you leave decisions to popular vote there is always the risk that the people may wish to burn witches or allow bull-baiting. But if you ban witch-burning when there is universal demand for it, you may well do more harm than good. The most enlightened rulers must still deal with people as they actually are, and can only slowly improve their natures.

Time, too, has moved on. A generation ago all advanced persons disapproved of the "enforcement of morality", because it meant enforcing Devlin's old-fashioned Christian morality. But the enforcement of morality is just as evident in laws and political programmes as ever it was. The difference is that the morality which legislators now want to impose on us is "advanced" rather than conservative. Laws forbidding discrimination on the grounds of sex, race or religion, laws which promote and require "diversity", and so on are not usually necessary to keep the peace. Their purpose is a moral one. We might agree or disagree with that morality, but that is the reason."

Read the rest of the article