Should the level of social moral outrage dictate laws?

[BlaqueKatt]

Also, and yes from personal experience, if your male and finally come out about your abuse a lot of people will tell you to suck it up and move on even though if you were female they would take it seriously.

yay for blatant sexism[/sarcasm]-abuse is abuse-personally I'd call them on their sexism, with something to the effect of "so having a Y chromosome makes me stronger?/ having two X chromosomes make one weaker?"

[Kheldarson]

To answer bluntly: No it shouldn't. But it does because we're human and that's how we interpret things. But that's why the current democratic governments were established. They're supposed to take the moral desires of the many, weigh them against the actual needs, and determine whether or not the moral desire has any real bearing.

But the government is made up of humans too so that doesn't quite work either.

But that's also why, in the US at least, there's supposed to be a separation of power between state and federal governments. People should be allowed to vote with their feet on any issue. Don't like the taxes someplace? Move. Don't like the laws? Move. If it's bad enough, areas will change laws in order to bring people, and their money, back.

[XiaoTortuga]

Just a thought, given another topic...

Should the 2 - morals and laws - coincide? Or is there some reason why not?

Yes!

MY morals and MY moral outrage should determine the laws and the punishment.

Why?

Cause I'm that awesome and, quite frankly, better than everyone else.

[ladyneeva]

But that's also why, in the US at least, there's supposed to be a separation of power between state and federal governments. People should be allowed to vote with their feet on any issue. Don't like the taxes someplace? Move. Don't like the laws? Move. If it's bad enough, areas will change laws in order to bring people, and their money, back.

The idea was great back when it was proposed, because you didn't need hard currency or a job, and setting up a farm was a matter of finding whatever open parcel of land you wanted and just setting up housekeeping.

In that situation, if you didn't like the laws of the state... sure, you would lose everything you couldn't take with you, but when you got where you were going you could just set up shop again.

Now, it isn't nearly as easy to just pick up and move as it was then. You need to arrange for a job or some other form of income, you need to arrange housing (which involves background checks, credit checks, deposits, fees, etc), you might need to transfer things like your kids school records, medical records, etc to businesses in the new city.

There is just so much involved with interstate moves for most average (not super poor and homeless, nor super rich and already own homes in every state and three in California) people.

If average working class or middle class folks live in a state that passes a law they feel is restrictive or unfair (or fails to pass something striking down such a law), just picking up and moving is no longer an option.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Query: Why is it (possibly seen as) a more heinous crime to sexually abuse a child than to murder them?

Probably cuz the victim is alive and suffering. A murdered child, and for the sake of argument, let's say that the child was cleanly killed, may be dead and horribly dead, but they are not suffering. The thought of sexual abuse is a terrible thing to most people, and the thought of a young child having to endure such torture, that would have most adults finding it almost impossible to live with, is more than most people can take. Rightly or wrongly, they will see the child as being irrevokably ruined and destroyed, and likely to grow up damaged. Therefore, it is seen as worse than plain murder.

I will also add that baby murder seems to be the exception; there is a similar horror attached to anyone who brutally beats, batters and shakes a baby to death, cuz a baby after all is unable to either defend itself against attack or to speak up against the attacker. Example: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5140511.ece