Our state legislature is now
in session, with 500-plus new bills under consideration. What will they
pass, and how many of them do we actually need?
We are awash in
laws. Every excursion from home crosses hundreds of them. While many are
well-intentioned, others are inane. Law figures prominently into two
current issues: the clash on same-sex marriage and so-called
anti-discrimination legislation.
Not all "law" is logical or good.
Some laws are obvious; they defy argument because everyone accepts them
as wise and necessary. Others are arbitrarily forced on us by
authorities that demand obedience "because we say so."
Natural
laws deal with what is true in any timeframe, circumstance and culture.
They condemn actions such as theft, murder and rape. Logic and reason
tell every culture that these things are wrong. Natural laws give us
freedom by telling us what is universally unacceptable. We then have
liberty in all else, providing we do not infringe on the rights of
others. Serious consequences result if natural laws are violated.
Natural laws apply to everyone; their built-in supremacy clause trumps all man-made laws.
Prominent
Founder James Wilson explained, "The Law of Nature is immutable ...
because it has its foundation in the natural constitution and mutual
relations of men and things."
These moral forces are the "self-evident truths" Thomas Jefferson recorded in the Declaration of Independence.
Natural
laws are as old as time. The great Roman statesman, Cicero, circa 100
BC, explained: "True law is right reason in agreement with nature ... it
is of universal application ... [and] is impossible to abolish."
John
Locke, whose "Second Treatise of Government" has inspired freedom
planners for ages, taught natural law as the foundation of universal
morality. Through the centuries, other great minds -- Aquinas in Italy,
Grotius in Holland, Suarez in Spain, Hobbes in England--have agreed.
The
opposite of natural law is posit law, written by governments because
they want to, and presented as arbitrary. Examples include zoning
requirements, license laws and property controls. These laws assume we
are incompetent, and they stem from man-made authority that requires
obedience.
While natural law gets its authority from God, posit
law is backed by force and threatened punishment. Natural laws freely
invite acceptance and practice; posit laws need a bureaucracy for
enforcement.
Natural law is self-limiting, while posit law usurps
and is greedy: the more it has, the more it wants. Posit laws may ignore
reason; natural laws cannot. They can criminalize what is not criminal,
condemn what may not deserve condemnation, and regulate by requiring
government permission to proceed.
While posit law is not always
bad, it can be unnecessary, costly, burdensome and frustrating. Carry it
too far and you dance with Lenin's definition of communism: "[P]ower
based upon force and limited to nothing, by no kind of law and
absolutely no set rule."
These two forms of law surround both
same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination legislation, which forces our
property use and business practices. Both practices violate natural law;
both are enveloped by posit law. Heterosexual marriage -- the marriage
of natural law -- has been practiced by every culture, in every
timeframe and in every national circumstance. If not so, we would not
have survived, as heterosexual unions are mandatory to continue every
animal species.
Heterosexuality is the pattern for our planet.
Also inherent in natural law are the rights violated by
anti-discrimination legislation: the freedom to express ourselves,
believe what we choose, determine with whom we will and will not do
business and how we will control our property.
Only posit law
forces unnatural regulations and relationships on society and demands
that we service them. Natural laws -- laws that are "right reason in
agreement with nature" -- prevent harm; they do not cause it by forcing
acceptance and association. There are some things that cannot yield to
posit law. Our lawmakers need to know that the two above mentioned items
are among them. Please tell them so.
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