acroyear | the true libertarian meaning of "legislating morality"

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Rowe and Sandefur on Legislating Morality:

[...] that contrary to those who say we can't legislate morality, the truth is that we must legislate morality. The arguments in favor of gay marriage are moral arguments; so are the arguments against what we commonly call "morals legislation." [...]

Yes, one can make practical arguments against those types of policies as well, but there is an inescapable moral component to such arguments that we should not shrink from. The Declaration of Independence, for example, makes its case in boldly moral terms: men are endowed with unalienable rights and to violate those rights is unjust. Contrary to those who say that we cannot legislate morality, the truth is that by preventing some from imposing their will on others we are, in fact, legislating morality.

That's the argument we must make against "legislating morality", that regardless of one's personal views on what is and is not moral behavior, to impose those views on others and use coercion to stop them from doing something that does not harm another person or deprive them of their rights is immoral and unjust. That is the founding premise of this nation, one that we have far too often failed to stand up for and insist upon. But it is an emphatically moral argument and there is no need to pretend otherwise.