In SM Stirling's Emberverse, Catholics, Wiccans and Buddhists are allied against an enemy that would suppress any religion but its own. So far, so good.
In a society where Catholics are in a minority, they insist on educating their children in specifically Catholic schools and also that all children of mixed marriages have to be brought up as Catholics. (I would be unable to marry a Catholic for this reason.) If Catholics were to gain a majority in the legislative assembly of a democratic state, would they then legislate specifically Catholic morality? Would they make contraception and divorce illegal?
2 comments:
IIRC, the Catholic church formally renounced State limitations on religious freedom even when they benefited from them between the 1930's and the 1950's.
Everyone legislates according to their conception of morality, of course; it's impossible not to.
Kaor, Paul!
Disgusting and repulsive tho artificial birth control drugs and devices are, I would not use the coercive powers of the state to ban them. Because I do not think any such attempt would work. The wise ruler and legislator should always keep in mind PRUDENCE--would a proposed law work? And I have to reluctantly accept that reasoning for divorce as well.
But, I have absolutely no such "tolerance" for the abomination of abortion and infanticide. Those crimes are MURDERS of the unborn or recently born. Justice and reason alike tells us that the unjust killing of a human being at any age is always and forever wrong.
Sean
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