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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (29619)	2/17/2005 10:16:24 PM
From: mph	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 90947

There are differences in the types of laws. This difference is often referred to as a distinction between those involving acts which are malum in se and those which are malum prohibitum. law.cornell.edu law.cornell.edu (not even sure that that second definition is entirely accurate. There are plenty of laws proscribing things which are not necessarily immoral, even if they are illegal.) The Rosa Parks situation was clearly of the second type. This gets back to my earlier discussion of moral relativism. There are certain things that are just plain wrong. A sexual relationship between a 12 year old and his teacher is one of them. To attempt justification is to apply the prism of relativity, which in such case is inappropriate. While there may be defenses to the criminal prosecution, just as there are defenses to prosecutions of all manner of crimes, both malum in se and malum prohibitum, this does not supply a basis for a societal justification of morally reprehensible--and extemely damaging-- behavior. I realize that there are shades of morality and that there are some areas in which the society as a whole cannot reach accord. After all, they use to stone adulterers. But when it comes to protecting minor children---who sometimes have to be protected from themselves and the often unfortunate consequences of their own immature judgment---I suspect that society as a whole would rise to condemn what happened in the case of the 12 year old and his teacher. And not just because it was illegal. Look at the furor over priest molestation. I daresay some of those children may have gone along in a superficially willing fashion. Who knows? Does anyone advocate looking at whether a child and a priest really loved each other? Doubt it. Most of the moral controversies involving behavior concern an interplay between individual rights and the spectrum of moral beliefs. Abortion is a prime example. The focus there seems to be whether the second life IS life subject to independent protection or whether the individual rights of the mother must trump, and to what extent. But abortion rights is a subject unto itself. When it comes to children out of the womb, society has a paramount and unquestionable interest in their protection. While there may be some disagreements as to the contours (e.g., what devices can they bring to school, do they have privacy rights in their possessions, must they obtain parental consent for abortions), when it comes to limiting what adults can do to or with them, I think we can say that wrong is wrong with the confidence that society as a whole would agree. Rosa defied an unjust law. It was a small step forward towards a needed, and moral, sea change. The teacher overstepped a child and stole his youth. To condone it in any fashion is both a giant step backward and a leap into moral oblivion. JMO