One of the touching things about "the left" is their apparent naivete regarding the ever-dreaded "legislation" of "values" or "morals." Countless times, a dear friend has insisted to me, in all seriousness: "You can't legislate morality."

David Pleasant provides one such example:

Furthermore, the far right conservative base, in my opinion, does lobby heavily to impose their religious values into legislation. I disagree with the level to which the evangelical fundamentalists, a term frequently misused, seek to "impose" their values on others. I have a strong Christian belief, but I don't necessarily want the "Christian" beliefs of others to be my forced moral compass. In other words, I am an Episcopalian/Anglican, and I do not want forced standards or laws imposed that are derived on Southern Baptist doctrine. Nor do I want to force my Anglo-Catholic standards on Southern Baptists, Muslims, etc.

As someone who generally wants to minimize the scope and power of government, and would generally prefer to have fewer laws on the book, I find it odd to see that my opponents think conservatives like myself want to expand governmental power, in comparison to their own position.

Perhaps David himself, or someone who feels likewise, could clue me in on what I'm overlooking here.

The next assumption that strikes me as almost touchingly naive is that "the left" doesn't want to force their moral beliefs on others. Then how do we explain minimum wage laws? Taxpayer-funded welfare programs? Title IX? Campus speech codes? Desire for socialized medicine? And yes, even the desire to enshrine gay marriage without a vote?

Consider today's Boston Globe editorial, which insists that gay marriage is too important to allow people to vote on it:

When a final vote is taken by the new Legislature, the members must consider whether this is an appropriate issue to put to the voters.... But civil rights are fundamental, and gay marriage should not be subject to plebiscite here, any more than it would have been appropriate to have Alabama voters directly decide school integration or Virginia voters decide interracial marriage

My point here isn't whether these are good or bad values -- my point is that all laws are a way of encouraging some behaviors and discouraging others. There are, quite simply, no laws which lack a moral component. Indeed, the whole point of making a law is that you believe something is so "good" or "bad" it needs the full force of the state to protect or prevent it.

When you realize that, it becomes readily apparent that whatever group wants the most laws is the group which most strongly wants to use the state to force others to comply with their idea of morality.

And even moreso when the argument is that many of their values are so important that we must bypass the normal democratic processes, as is, and was, the argument for so many policies the left favors, such as promoting gay marriage, affirmative action, forced busing, abortion, etc. There is simply no comparison, on this count, from the right.