This morning I was reading an article by Kristen Walker. The part of it below seems to speak to this discussion.
Would be curious what you all think.
From the article:
"Let’s do some Criminal Justice 101, shall we? There are two types of laws: malum in se and malum prohibitum. Malum in se is a Latin phrase meaning “wrong in itself.” Most of us feel that murder is wrong, therefore there is a law against it. Malum prohibitum means something is wrong because it is prohibited. For example: in the United States we have to drive on the right side of the road, not because driving on the left is inherently evil (I’m lookin’ at you, England!) but because good order meant we had to pick one side. Because we’ve picked right, if you drive on the left, you’re gonna get stopped. Try it, you’ll see.**
Malum in se laws are based on morality. Our laws here in the U.S. grew out of English Common Law, which in turn was based on Judeo-Christian morality. Now, old-timey English lawmakers did not sit around and go, “Hmmm, what should we base our laws on?” And then come up with the Bible because it had an attractive leather cover. Judeo-Christian morality was a part of the culture since the 7th century, and has in fact formed Western culture, culminating most recently in our humble little former colony, the United States.
Detractors will say English Common Law formed in the 5th century, before Christianity took hold in Britain. But the law as we know it didn’t stop forming then. Christian men such as Henry de Bracton in the 13th century in England and Sir William Blackstone in the 18th century in the United States have had a tremendous impact on creating the laws we know today.
Whether you like it or not, the culture that created you is a Judeo-Christian culture. All the things you think are right and wrong were formed by Judeo-Christian principles. Why do you think it’s wrong to have slaves? Western culture is just like most other civilizations in that it engaged in slavery, but unique in that it is solely responsible for ridding the world of it. What about having a harem of concubines? That was common in pre-Christian cultures, not so much in the West today. Sacrificing virgins? No big deal to the pagans, but frowned upon in our time.
The idea of loving people more than ourselves, sacrificing for the poor, turning the other cheek… these ideas were so revolutionary to the Roman world in which Christianity was born that they were scandalous. The tenets of Christianity made Christians so different they were almost universally hated. They were persecuted and killed all over the Roman Empire, until the Emperor Constantine had a vision. But I digress.
So those who cry that morals have no place in public policy are a little too late. Judeo-Christian morals created our public policy, created our culture, were the basis for our founding documents, guided the formation of our nation through the beliefs of our founders, and make up the fabric of our society.
Recently, a postmodern deconstructionist tendency to wipe American law clean of “traditional” morality has created not a sparkling tabula rasa, but a libertine morass. You don’t have to be a Jew or Christian to recognize there is such a thing as right and wrong. Lately, it seems like the only evil people will recognize is believing in evil."