What Nations Should Do About Morality

There is a famous verse in the bible, which says that governments are formed to act as a vindictive arm of God (see Romans 13). Because of this verse, many Christians have argued that it is the duty of the governments to maintain moral standards and enact laws that bar people from participating in such acts as would tantamount to sin.

Some of the laws, which are being pushed for by different religious groups, include such laws as should be against homosexuality, abortion, incense, rape, murder, theft among many others. Not only are these laws being limited to activities that are clearly defined as sin in biblical sense, but other groups have requested that the governments should govern the modes of worship, forbidding some kind of worship activities terming them satanic or otherwise detrimental to peaceful and orderly existence of society.

A very important law that has ever been passed in the history of humanity is the American constitution. The part of this constitution that has impressed me most is the clause that separates the state from the church (religious beliefs and affiliations). The clause forbids any person from doing any favors, discrimination, segregation, giving of or denying employment opportunities, and otherwise similar practices to person(s) or group(s) of persons due to their religious affiliation. In this clause, the state is also forbidden from denying anyone, by any means, the right of an individual to worship according to the dictates of his/her own conscience.

And now comes the contradiction. What should the state do when it comes to such behaviors that the church considers sinful and the church needs the state to forbid such activities? Here, a reasonable comprise should be reached.

According to set up of governments and their universal agenda to provide security, economic growth, and internationals relations, forbidding activities such as murder, rape, theft and similar harmful attributes of human behavior is understandable. But when it comes to enactments of laws that forbid incense, homosexuality and lesbianism, abortion (some countries have legalized abortion) among others, the governments are always put in a quagmire. Thus the reason why we have other countries taking different stands on the issue of the laws.

So, it is time that moral standards were evaluated, and church duly separated from state. The standards in which seems to conflict with state's obligations, and would mean the state participating in the activities of the church, should be left entirely on the church to decide on. An example on this is the issue of incense. Most countries these days harbor diverse groups of people each from a different culture with norms which conflict. In a country such as , a bill has been passed on rape, terming sexual intercourse between people who are related by blood as a type of rape. Yet, in this country, live people from countries such as and , who even marry brothers and sisters!

To my opinion, the laws in which cultural or religious or similar contradictions exists should be silenced. Allowing such activities in the law will be considered that the governments are promoting immorality yet they are supposed to be separate from church or other religions affairs, and at the same time, the same argument would be passed.

And to talk about homosexuality and the human rights on the issue, it would be better if the term homosexuality did not exist in any law of any country, so that whoever engages in such an act, should be ready to face it out with the religious affiliation he is in. What about abortion? There should be a distinction between abortion and murder before any government rushes to allow any inhuman activity!