Legislating Morality

With the recent Democratic win I've heard some religious Republicans going on about how the country is going to go to hell, and I've seen petitions asking Obama to consider the Christian position on abortion, gay rights, and other issues.

Now, I'm about as Catholic as they come, and yet...I wonder whether we really should be legislating morality.

I guess I don't understand. For one thing, the religious right is selective about what it chooses to legislate. They go after gay marriage because they say it's immoral, and yet they don't make a move to herd people into church, or stop using the Lord's name in vain, or stop adultering (adulterating? adulterring? committing adultery.). I guess some things are absolutely protected under the Bill of Rights, but it just seems like the religious right picks and chooses what it deems as immoral, and uses morality as an excuse to legislate those things.

I also don't understand the overall goal of passing laws based on morality. Perhaps people just don't want to live in a country where those things happen. Well, I have news for ya...those things are going to happen, regardless of laws. Perhaps people think that they're saving souls, that if citizens don't have the opportunity to sin that they'll go to Heaven. I don't know if that's true, that if someone avoids sin out of a desire to stay on the right side of the law that it's the same as avoiding sin out of love of God.

What I do know is that I've never seen someone improve the way they live because they were bullied into it. I also know that I have seen people improve the way they live because they were inspired by someone's example, or touched by someone's love.

Maybe I really am a lousy Catholic because I think this way. I'd be open to hearing someone else's opinion. But this is the way I feel now.