God should be a considerable factor in acts of legislation in the US

V. "Legal Obligation" I must once again point out that my opponent has failed to understand what sort of separation is implied by the first amendment. It does not mean that individuals are required to ignore their own political beliefs and not seek legislation like everyone else can when those beliefs happen to have been instilled mainly by their religion. The separation between church and state is instead meant to prevent the state from adopting a religion, and to stop the state from enacting laws that inherently favor members of one religion over another. State-sponsored prayer is an example of this, as is the example I gave of a law legalizing murder against everyone except Christians. Ia. "Political vs. Personal" Allow me to restate my argument from last round. Of course there is a debate about when a human life deserves the protections of law against being killed. Some would say it's at conception. Some would say it's at a specific developmental stage during pregnancy. Some would say it's at birth. Some would say it's after birth, even a few years. This is why I brought up the infanticide argument. It used to be legal to kill newborn children, or even children a few years old. Those ancient laws weren't objectively wrong, but most people today would say that they were subjectively wrong. And that's precisely what a democracy is supposed to do - find the majority opinion on what should be legal and legislate that majority opinion. It doesn't matter where that opinion came from, and it doesn't matter that that opinion happens to be subjective (like all opinions). What does matter, as I've stated, is what that opinion happens to be. While the issue of what conditions we use to bestow people with legal protections is a valid issue for us to legislate, it would not be valid for us to, say, reinstate slavery. Slavery is unconstitutional on its own right. It would also not be valid for us to decide on a state religion, or make any law that treats certain religions differently from others. That's also unconstitutional. But there are a myriad of legitimate political topics that religious views can influence, and it is neither fair nor reasonable to expect people to not pursue legislation on their political views simply because those views happen to have stemmed from religious belief. My opponent says that he is arguing that "holding political views stemming solely from religion would be immoral," but most political views are not solely due to religion - it is merely a considerable factor. This is inherent in the fact that we're talking about secular politics. While the abortion issue has strong arguments based on religion, it also has many arguments on both sides that have nothing to do with religion. II. "Impossibility to enforce" School prayer is unconstitutional, and I've already explained why. This is why it can be prevented by law. My opponent says it would be immoral to hold a position against, for instance, gay marriage, simply because of religious teaching. I must disagree, as I have in previous rounds. Some religious people literally believe that gay marriage is an injustice toward their god, and some even believe that allowing gay marriage would bring our country bad fortune. Given these views, it would be immoral for such a person NOT to try legislating against it when there is a system in place to do so. A fair democratic process counts everyone's opinions. It does not selectively ignore those opinions that have been influenced by religious thinking. It allows all opinions, no matter the source. As I've said though, there are strict limits on what things may be legislated and what may not - so even a majority opinion that public schools should raise children to be good Christians would not be a valid law. But when the issue is not unconstitutional, it is up to the opinions of the masses to determine the law. III. "Considerable" My opponent claims that a slippery slope into theocracy is possible. It's not, due to the strict guidelines of what is valid to legislate. The country will continuously morph depending on the views held by the public at large. If those laws happen to have been influenced by the public's religion, so be it. ==CLOSING STATEMENTS== It doesn't matter where we get our beliefs from. No source is objectively good. Getting political views from mommy and daddy is no objectively better than getting them from the bible or from a priest. It is for individuals to decide what political views they wish to hold, drawing from whatever sources they wish. And if they truly care about the issue, it is immoral for them not to participate in the democratic process in favor of their ideals. My opponent's position is not fair to all religions, it is unfair to all religions. It favors nonreligious institutions over religious ones. This is not only unconstitutional, it's also unfair, despite my opponent's misconceptions.