Let us assume for this purpose that legislative morality can be universally defined as, “Laws created to ensure acts that the majority would define as moral.”
In a different thread, we touched upon one such law which is the banning of gay marriage, as we all know this law has a strong base in Christianity as well as a few other religions and is mostly existent (where it is a law) due to the religious majority. Any law that is anti-abortion in its nature probably also has a strong base with the religious majority, although, I think that there are a few more pro-life advocates that are not religious than there are anti-gay marriage advocates that are not religious, but I can’t be sure.
Anyway, I would like for those two issues to be kept out of the conversation as they are obvious examples of legislative morality and I believe that they would lead any conversation away from what my intent behind this question is.
That said, here is my question:
Can you think of any hypothetical examples, or actual laws (whether or not they be based on core religious moral values) that represent legislative morality going to far in terms of forcing us to live our lives in a, “moral,” way? In other words, is there anything that is dictated to us that you feel should not be?
Obviously, most laws are based on what I would consider generally accepted moral principles, i.e. rape and theft being crimes, but are there any laws that may not represent something that is as commonly viewed as moral?
An example that I would choose would probably have to be SEC enforced laws regarding insider trading. If I were a sole-proprietor I might sell my business and that business may be bought by another person who doesn’t know something that I do know, how is the sale of stocks any different? Ultimately, when one owns stock, one is an owner in a business, and even though the entity is corporate, many of these stockholders are individuals. That having been said, if I am privy to information that the public is not aware of I would have to say that I am going to do whatever it is that I have to do in order to protect my investment, even if it means selling stock because I know it will lose value.
If anyone would like to debate the morality of insider trading, please do so. Also, please add any other examples of legislative morality that you may feel do not reflect a commonly held moral belief for discussion.