Church or State?

i just wrote this for school. might edit it later:

As I follow the presidential debates this year, I can’t help but be bothered by the fact that many of the current issues are really non-issues. While the morality of abortion or of gay marriage is certainly a debatable topic, it is not the job of our governors to determine objective morality. In a nation in which church and state are separate, a new, pertinent ethos must be established.

When the people of the United States decided to ensure that a religious organization could not control the government (and vice versa), they effectively cut off many paths which the US government could take. For all intents and purposes, this means that the state would not be able to act solely on religious interests; if a law was to be passed, there must be a reason other than, “My pastor told me that this is the right thing to do.” Obviously the separation of church and state is not the same as the separation of morality and the state. A moral code is necessary to write law and govern others. However, it is obvious that much of what determines morality is in cultural and religious tradition; a country that is entirely Muslim, for instance, will have a very distinct unspoken ethos. When the state is vastly multicultural, however, a morality based upon a single religious tradition cannot be accepted as the norm. Because of this, the United States – a nation that has come to identify itself both by its separation of church and state and by its many cultures – must find for its government a different kind of ethos – one founded upon something other than religious tradition.

The apparent paradox here is clear; while an ethos is necessary in governing a nation, most ethical codes are based on religious tradition. You might argue that it is acceptable, even desirable, to have our leaders maintain their individual, religious moralities and let our differences balance us. While this is an exceptional ideal, the fact is that our leaders are misinterpreting the role of morality in a government characterized by separation of church and state. It is not the role of the US government to legislate morality (if it can be legislated); the role of the government is to both protect its citizens and to preserve itself as an entity. Until our leaders understand this distinction, the ‘morality melting pot’ theory will only bring about more confusion. It is from this fundamental misunderstanding that confusing pro-life/pro-choice dichotomies arise; we as a people cannot come to an agreement because we are focusing on which is objectively right in a moral sense instead of which protects the citizens and preserves the Union. If the nation were a theocracy, the idea of objective morality would be very germane. This, however, is not the case. I’m not saying that an objective morality doesn’t exist; I am instead asserting that such morality is irrelevant in a government which has decided to shelve the issue.

Clearly, we must adopt a different moral perspective when dealing with our own government. Traditional, religion-based morality is out of the question, as it becomes arbitrary from the constitutional perspective. We must instead adopt a rational morality which will successfully protect the people and preserve the state. In my opinion, the best candidate is a pseudo-Kantian, pragmatic approach to lawmaking: “If everyone were allowed to kill without consequence, would the citizens be protected? Would the state be able to preserve itself?” When political issues are approached with this new morality, we will see a fundamentally forward-thinking movement take off.