Are sexual prohibitions mixing religion and the law?

Morality, amorality, and immorality are terms that make sense only within a specific moral system or model: what is immoral in one system may be trivially amoral in another; a moral obligation in one model is an immoral imposition in another.The notion of moral relativism is itself prima facie absurd because it suggests it could be otherwise: all moral systems are relative in that they cohere only for those within them. That is why so many of the responses above hinge determinations of sexual morality on the question of consent: if two competent persons act together consensually within a mutually agreed upon moral contract, their actions are moral within that contract. It is as fruitless to judge those actions from within another system as it is to ask the speed of blue. It will not compute.We disdain the man who "cheats" on his wife because he has promised not to--they entered into a private moral universe with their marriage vows (if they didn't, and have an open marriage, then "cheats" does not apply). We nearly universally disdain that man because he failed to honor his vow in the most intimate realm; religions proscribe this behavior because a primary function of religion is to reinforce the moral covenants we make together.One moral bedrock is the familiar, "First, do no harm"--a charge all, not just physicians, might consider. Cited often as evidence of the earliest development of a "moral sense" in children is their response to broken things: toddlers will cry when symmetrical form is broken. To break, to damage, to hurt: these are moral absolutes; what is breaking, what is damaging, what hurts: these are morally relative because they are coherent notions only within a closed system, only between mutual subscribers.In short, disdain for the philanderer does not impose religious beliefs; he may well not give a fig for our disdain, and even if he does, disdain is an internal state, not an action. To abduct that man into a moral system he has not subscribed to, and then to pursue punitive measures, is an absolutely immoral act. Science can play a part by helping to determine what promotes and what inhibits robust development,what maintains healthful function, etc., but even the question of whether each determination belongs to the morally absolute or the morally relative is outside of science's bounds. Was the masochist tragically hastened to an early grave by the sadist? Or did the masochist trade-off a longer life for a shorter one of fiery intensity?These are human affairs. Where morality meets muscle, Science and God are largely and equally irrelevant.

Hi, Holmes:Thanks for both the compliments and the comments.A better choice of words for me would would have been to say that "the charge of moral relativism" is absurd because it implies an insupportable absolute. Yes: I was trying to portray accusations of moral relativism as disingenuous in their begging of the question--it's probably better to just cut to the chase. I was attempting here to move toward an action-based assessment of moral systems. So I will stand by my assertion that disdain "does not impose religious beliefs"--with the understanding that such disdain frequently does carry real-world costs for the disdained.For me, the punitive action is the bright line, the thin dimension where a working moral absolute (or given, a la Euclidean premises without which we cannot proceed) may be defined. As long as "disdain is an internal state, not an action" a judgement properly remains within its own relative moral sphere; when a disdainer seeks to impose either the disdaining system or punitive costs upon the disdained, the bright line is crossed.Having said all that, I am re-reading my message for the first time this a.m., and I, too, have a few questions to put to myself. Language intoxicates, and it always pays to consider later whether an argument soared on gusts of rhetoric or on wings of reason.Typically, I revisit a draft to find it is both.

I hear they are doing wonderful work at the Bonobo Center for Sensuocognitive Assonance. Personally, I feel that first achieving a comfort level on one's own with a modest metrosexual stance facilitates an expansive realization of our Bonobo Cosmosexual Potential (BCP).But that's just one big ape's opinion.