An Imposing Argument

Who Said It … John Leo

John Leo is a columnist for U.S. News & World Report. His book, How the Russians Invented Baseball and Other Essays of Enlightenment, showcases his humor. He’s also written Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police, a romp through the irrational world of political correctness, and Incorrect Thoughts, a thoughtful analysis of our wayward culture.

What He Said … An Imposing Argument

I’m struggling to understand the “don’t impose your values” argument. According to this popular belief, it’s wrong to vote your moral convictions unless everybody else already shares them. No-body ever explains exactly what constitutes an offense in voting one’s values, but the complaints appear to be aimed almost solely at conservative Christians, who are viewed as divisive when they try to “force their religious opinions on us.” But as UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh writes, “That’s what most lawmaking is—trying to turn one’s opinions on moral or pragmatic subjects into law.”

Those who think Christians should keep their moral views to themselves, it seems to me, are logically bound to deplore many praiseworthy causes, including the abolition movement, which was mostly evangelical churches courageously applying Christian ideas of equality to the entrenched institution of slavery. The slave owners, by the way, frequently used “don’t impose your values” arguments, contending that whether they owned blacks or not was nobody else’s business.