I’ve been checking out some of the debates about the latest top priority of the US government. You know, making sure that if you’re in love and want to get married, you have to fit the mold.
One frequent point I hear claims that
A. US laws were founded on the Bible and
B. the Bible prohibits homosexuality.
So US laws have traditionally followed Biblical laws. Is that the idea?
I’m not prepared to go into this in any depth, but I do remember hearing about ten pretty important commandments in the Bible. So, how many of those commandments are followed in US law?
Four. Theft, murder, adultery, and perjury. Should we outlaw coveting? Should we outlaw worshipping an idol? Should we outlaw neglecting to honor mom and dad?
Well, maybe not, but at least those four commandments we do follow are pretty good, right? Clearly those four things are outlawed because of the Bible. Right?
Just imagine living in a country lacking the Bible and its important contribution to the legal system. Why, if our laws weren’t founded on the Bible, murder would be legal, right?
All those things must have been legal in the USSR, right? China? India? The Kalahari? How could those crazy infidels have possibly imagined a prohibition against murder, theft, and lying?
And wait, the prohibition against homosexuality doesn’t appear in the ten commandments. It appears in the rest of the book, with all the stuff accepting slavery and condemning the touching of a pig (an abomination). You’re allowed to beat your slave with a rod, nearly to death, as long as she can get up after a day or two. No worries. But homosexuality is bad.
The Bible and the US legal code should be kept as far apart as possible. God forbid we bring them closer together. And the hypocritical idea that certain Biblical laws are important while others should be ignored (based, of course, on voters’ whims) is disgusting.
What you say here is so blindingly obvious that I just can’t imagine a response to it. I try and try and just can’t do it. Yet people still try to claim the Bible should be the basis for our legal system.
Maybe if you run across one, you can share it.
(btw, I allowed that cookie so I could comment!)
Yay for cookie tolerance!
LOL. IIRC, the Bible doesn’t just say homosexuality is bad—it says to stone homosexuals to death on sight. I’m waiting for the referendum to allow this.
BTW, as I read it, the Catholic Church violates that whole idolatry bit, which *is* in the Ten.
Also, I don’t believe the U.S. has any laws against murder. That’s left to the individual States.
I guess I could stretch a bit and say that the murder of a soldier by another soldier, or of an inmate by another in a federal pen, probably violates some US statute or other.
But of course, you’re right in your point. For the most part, laws about murder, theft, and the rest are left to the states, and aren’t US law at all.
First, I should point out that “murder” is a loaded word—it assumes illegality, begging the question. When the U.S. gave up on MS prosecuting the killers of three civil rights workers, they eventually brought charges (against the proud killers) of having violated the victims’ civil rights. Wrongfully killing someone denies them the right to life, liberty, and property! In that sense, the U.S. *does* have a law against wrongful killing, but it is, as you say, a stretch.
The key is the original meaning of ‘S’ in U.S.A.
Just read this. Murder may be a loaded word, but it is the word in question, because that’s what the commandment actually prohibits.
If a soldier wrongfully kills a soldier, I imagine that a federal crime has been committed. If a murder occurs in an embassy overseas, a federal crime has been committed. There are federal laws against murder.
Anyway, the states are part of the US, so when we say that the US has laws, the states’ laws are included.