At the outset, it may be stipulated that religion and morality are two different and distinct things. A man’s religion underdetermines his morality, and his morality underdetermines his religion: merely because he tells me that he is follows a certain religion, I cannot deduce from that his morality; and because he tells me that he holds to a certain morality, I cannot deduce from that his religion.
Writing about the controversial political questions of our day - abortion, homosexuality, race relations - the popular news media habitually assert an automatic and invariable connection, correlation, and causality between religion and morality. In such narratives, the words “religious” and “Christian” are meant to describe, not spiritual worldviews, but rather specific moral prescriptions or proscriptions.
Put simply: on many, if not all, moral questions, one can find atheists on both sides, Christians on both sides, Jews on both sides, Hindus on both sides, Buddhists on both sides, and Muslims on both sides. The same is true of Sikhs, Jains, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, etc.
Contrary to the impression given by the contemporary newspapers, there are pro-life atheists and pro-abortion Christians. In elections about normalizing homosexual relationships, in various of America’s fifty states, significant numbers of atheists have voted in favor of the standard definition of marriage as one man and one woman, while significant numbers of Christians have voted against it.
In short, the news media assert a relationship between religion and morality which simply does not exist.
The ubiquity of the popular press’s assertion, however, has clouded the logic of ethical reasoning.
Consider, e.g., the writing of Supreme Court Justice Scalia in Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case. Note his studious avoidance of any religious vocabulary:
Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”
A precise use of vocabulary is necessary to properly distinguish, then, between moral questions and religious questions. Definitions of moral or religious concepts should be carefully formulated.
The confusion of these two categories - religion and morality - in ubiquitous in vernacular usage. The borderline between the two is habitually blurred.
It is true, admittedly, that there are certain points of connection between religion and ethical, or meta-ethical, considerations. But that connection is not as determining as is commonly supposed.
This clarification can proceed by conducting moral analyses, as far as possible, without reference to religion. Likewise, religious analyses should be conducted, to the extent possible, without consideration of morality.
If these investigations refer to each other only when necessary, it will become clear how seldom such necessity occurs.
