Don't try to legislate morality

Relevant has a fine essay, entitled "The Biblical Case Against Legislating Morality."

I suggest that you read it. I'll summarize. The author, Jasmin Patterson, does not believe that trying to get people to behave through legislation is effective. She has four reasons:

She says that legislating morality doesn't actually change people.

Jesus didn't use that approach.
In the discussion of that point, Patterson says she is not for letting people get away with, say, murder. She writes: "I recognize there is an inherent moral quality in declaring some things legal and illegal based on their impact on society, even if all people may not agree on where that moral standard comes from. But we need to evaluate whether laws are God’s primary method of producing morality and change in people. They are not."

She thinks that legislating morality actually pushes people away from Christ.

When Christians want to make their morality into the morality of the state, they are trying to do so for their own comfort.

Read Patterson. Thanks for looking at this post.