Religious Tradition in Law

Religious tradition has had a strong influence on American society from the get-go. As many religious traditionalists have pointed out, our founding fathers were Christian and the belief system that they based the Constitution on was that of enlightenment-period Christiandom.
Interestingly, although the founding fathers intended a "seperation of church and state," they also granted both the freedom to practice religion and the freedom to vote. Combined, these two form the right to vote based on your religious belief; something that is not uncommon in modern American society.

Because our lawmakers are elected, this means that the religious beliefs of the masses can have a subtle yet no less powerful impact on the way laws are written. In America today, I would describe our law as "selectively Christian" in the sense that, although many laws based on religion are rejected as unconstitutional, many laws which do not uphold traditional religious values meet heavy resistance because the voters have religious opinions. Take for instance the example in The Transformation of American Religion regarding the idea that the galvanization of the evangelical right against Roe v Wade may well have made the difference in the election of George W. Bush (Wolfe 117).

This is by no means a recent occurance. In fact, our laws have been passively created from a Christian foundation despite the secular nature we attribute to them. As I have mentioned before, suicide is considered illegal in most places in the U.S. In fact, it has long been supposed that suicide denotes insanity (suicidal tendencies can be used as proof of insanity in a courtroom). I maintain that this is a fundamentally Judeo-Christian viewpoint. Although it may be considered a sin in the eyes of the Judeo-Christian God, under the first ammendment we should not require the non-Christian to abide by a traditionalist's definition of sin.
We have the right to life, liberty, and property. We are allowed to give up our property and our liberty, why wouldn't we be allowed to give up life?

There has been a debate over whether suicide denotes insanity. This NY Times article draws a line between "true suicide" for trivial reasons, and "reasonable suicide" when circumstances make life too painful to live. (Article by S.A.K. Strahan)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9403E3DC1F39E033A25757C1A9679C94659ED7CF

This issue is still very much at hand in American politics. California act AB 374 was incredibly controversial. This act gives the dying the right to suicide to avoid the last painful moments of a deadly disease. Click here for an article by Frank D. Russo about the "Compassionate Choice" act:
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/03/california_comp_1.html

Check out this Youtube video on AB 374 (I couldn't figure out how to embed). Tom MacDonald speaks to the California assembly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vi7F5mnsE

I find it amazing that there is so much controversy over suicide among dying people. It seems we are a long way off from legalizing meaningless suicide. Apparently you have to live your life whether you like it or not. That's what we call freedom.

For more citation info on Wolfe, http://secularsacred05.blogspot.com/search/label/course%20texts