Legislating Morals

I often hear the idea thrown around that government "cannot legislate morals."

I can understand why people think this. Often they equate morals with religion, and they think that we must have separation of church and state (another post on separation of church and state to come later). Therefore, because the government and religion should be separate, we cannot or should not legislate morals, according to many.

It is important to realize that moral beliefs are more than religious beliefs. Even the idea that government should not legislate morals is a moral belief. The idea of "separation of church state" is also a moral belief.

Our government would not be a government if it did not legislate morals. Every single thing that it legislates is based on someone's moral belief. Even things that seem totally unrelated to religion, like taxes for example. The idea that we should all pitch in so that we can have things like roads, clean water, protection, etc. is a moral belief. The idea that people who rape and murder or cause any other type of harm should be punished is also a moral belief.

Government is government because it legislates morals: your morals, my morals, someone's morals. If the statement "we cannot legislate morals" were actually true, it would mean we should have no government. That would be anarchy.

Therefore, the question is not whether or not we should legislate morals (we should, unless we want anarchy), but whose morals do we legislate?

What do you think? Whose morals do we legislate?