Our legal system must acknowledge modern standards of moral behaviour
By Mohamed Sheriffdeen
Photos courtesy of Marcin Marklewicz / flickr
The ongoing hearings regarding the legal validity of California’s same-sex marriage ban have re-raised several questions regarding legality and gay equality — principally in statements made by Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia when confronted during a guest lecture at Princeton last December.
Duncan Hosie, an 18-year-old gay student, denounced Scalia’s rulings in previous court cases that reduced homosexuality to actions “immoral and unacceptable.” Hosie specifically cited Lawrence v. Texas from 2003, in which Scalia compared homosexual conduct to bestiality, bigamy, adultery and obscenity before his coup de grace: Scalia reasoned that even if state law did not protect gays as a class, the state need not justify denial to equal protection by “anything more than a rational basis.”
Secularism is arguably one of the most significant principles that forwarded construction and operation of modern governments. Ideally, separation of church and state aims to mitigate the influence of individuals’ perceptions of morality and eliminate inequality borne by legal consolidation of religious beliefs.
It has become chic to identify religious individuals as blind followers of arcane texts – inherently bigoted and inflexible. Pope Francis, recently sworn in, has espoused the necessity of interfaith dialogue to strengthen ties between all people. He included atheists in the discussion, considering them “precious allies in the effort to defend human dignity . . . and in carefully protecting creation.”
At the same time, he also espoused his antagonism to gay marriage in widely distributed quotes as a “destructive attack on God’s plan,” calling gay adoption a “deprivation of human development.” If atheists, who outright deny the existence of god are more “moral” people than potentially religious gay married couples, what religious-based morals are we left with?
It has also become chic to identify governments as a monolithic creation of decaying social systems, but they too are composed of people — people who are stubborn and are tied to preconceptions of morality. This highlights an interesting dichotomy in global politics: all governments operate under the principles of fundamentalism — religious or ideological — cloaked under the guise of morality. Scalia summarized the viewpoint to Hosie last December: “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against these other things?”
Morality and absolute freedom constitute the great lie at the heart of nations. There can be no system of governance based on “morality” because the definition of morality varies drastically between individuals of different faiths and upbringings.
How can someone like Scalia defend the right to inequality by such a vague definition? The right of the state to uphold inequality by a mythical and imagined “rational basis”? What rationale can be considered sufficient to prevent individuals from loving one another without being demoted to second-class citizenship?
Moral law, human law and divine law all have their place in governance given the flexibility and the understanding of individuals that morality takes a backseat to equality. We cannot ridicule the Bible, the Qura’an or the Torah as being cast-iron documents without shaking our heads in disbelief at constitutionalists like Scalia for treating a human document as a sacrosanct wording handcrafted and delivered from Mount Philadelphia.
Obama’s recent defense of gay marriage under his “evolving” worldview has set a precedent that we cannot ignore. We cannot deny this evolution of human understanding and cast those who fight for equality under derogatory terms like those Bill Whatcott did while hiding behind the very same rights we seek to deny others. What kind of nation would we be? What kind of humans would we be?
