Morality and the Constitution

In the early seventies a very funny book was written by Allan Sherman, a well known comedian of the time, entitled The Rape of the A*P*E*. It was a comedic history of the sexual revolution that mocked and made fun of the APE, which stood for the American Puritan Ethic. The APE was, according to the book, driven by Morality One. Morality One supported everything the sexual revolution has since destroyed. Things like moral values, decency and respect have been stricken from our way of life.

The activist Supreme Court that followed the sexual revolution took a left turn in defining the Constitutions role and we will be paying for that for a long time. The Constitution of the United States is a political document guaranteeing political rights of its citizens. Moral issues do not belong under the jurisdiction of the Constitution. Moral issues should be handled by a person's conscience and if he chooses by his church.

Issues like censorship can be political or moral. A government that suppresses a political idea in written word or from being spoken is political censorship. A society that chooses to limit the way a social idea is written, spoken or viewed is not preventing what you say, write or do but how you say it, write it or do it. That would then be a moral code, not censorship.

In a book you could write, "and then he made love to her" or "and then he screwed her" or "and then he f**ked her." They all mean the same thing but a moral writing would use "and then he made love to her." Censorship to maintain morality outside our political freedom doesn't prevent one from expressing an idea, it only asks that it be said, written, acted, painted or sung a certain way.

Ones degree of morality can be connected to ones degree of religious belief. Because morality and religion are so intertwined, any Supreme Court decision defining a moral code issue, as censorship could be considered unconstitutional because it is not maintaining a separation of church and state.

Whether or not a female should be able to undress at the Kit Kat club is not a constitutional issue, it is a social issue, one of morality. If dance is considered expression the clothes she wears or doesn't wear can be considered degrees of the expression. She should have the right to express herself by dancing and take her clothes off until a community of people vote to limit the degree of expression in their community. She should not have the "right" to take her clothes off until the community determines it is no longer immoral and votes to change the moral code.

The Supreme Court allowed interpretations like Roe vs. Wade, to drag the Constitution into morality decisions it was not designed to cover. What the Constitution does cover, is defining the human state of a citizens political freedom. It was never intended to cover morality issues.

What is happening today is, a liberal side of society is attempting to use the political freedoms as moral freedoms. The result being, the protection of immorality by the Constitution, a condition that our founding fathers would turn over in their graves if they knew was happening.

When moral issues are defined as "rights," it becomes a two-edge sword in which a person would have the "right" to be as moral or immoral as he or she chooses. Our forefathers intended that the Constitution address political "rights" and they intended that laws define moral issues.

The Constitution does not, nor was it ever intended to, address abortion, nudity, obscenity or any other moral issue just as it doesn't address murder, rape, robbery or any other moral crime against society.

Morality changes with time and laws can be changed as that happens. The definition of political freedom will never change. There is no such thing as degrees of freedom of (political) speech. You are either free to speak or not. There is such a thing as degrees of freedom of (moral) speech. It doesn't restrict what you say but how it is said according to the morality of the time.

If a woman has the "right" to do anything with her body she wants to, then anyone should have the "right" to do anything with their body. This would include shooting drugs into it, displaying it, ending its life and so on. By keeping morality issues out of the Constitution, as it was designed, we can pass laws on individual actions and not be in conflict by it being defined as a "right."

Prior to Roe vs. Wade forty-nine states had laws against abortion. That expressed the feelings of most Americans before the sexual revolution. Those who supported abortion during that time could not get the laws changed because the people of the time didn't want them changed. The activist Supreme Court got involved and created law instead of defining law.

If you read the Constitution you would be hard pressed to find a way to protect abortion rights in the words our forefathers wrote. It takes some interpretive liberties that one would associate with decisions made while under the influence. Abortion can be legalized without it being a "right," if the people want it so. And it's the people who ultimately should define the moral issues that affect the society of people.

The preamble of the Constitution starts with "We the People" not "I the individual" but there are those that don't care about we the people as long as they can do whatever they want.

If we continue to accept the liberal interpretation of individual rights to include moral issues, we will have made the Constitution of the United States, the devil's bible and sealed the fate of this once great nation.

Had our forefathers had an inkling this would happen, they would have written the document differently. At that time morality was assumed, and that is the mistake they made. They assumed we would remain a moral Christian nation.

Immorality has wrapped itself in all kinds of "rights" protections and movements in America and there are those who want to spread it through out the world. Countries that still have a deep religious belief must consider us the evil empire because we are becoming one at a very fast rate. An immoral nation will not stand.

Go to Morality and the Constitution - Part II