Well, maybe. The problem with this position is that you're not the only person in the world. You may not even be the only person in your house, in which case you're kidding yourself if you think you run the place.
In the real world it's a certainty that you'll never have 100% agreement with anybody on matters of moral obligation. So, either both sides make accommodations, or you or somebody else is going to be forced into doing something they don't want to do. Is that "bad?" It can be ... but that's life.
My point is that a community can't have a moral obligation. A community is a social construct. A community has no soul, no relationship with a deity, only the individuals in that community do.
We are not of a hive mind. It is the actions or beliefs of the individuals in the community, taken in aggregate, often imposed on the remainder, which are the action of the community, but a community can't have a moral obligation, only the individual people in it.
The purpose of our Bill of Rights was to hold up some of the unalienable Rights we,
as individuals, have. There is even an Amendment that states the list there is not comprehensive, nor is it intended to limit the Rights of the individual to what is listed.
The
community has no Rights, only the
individuals in it, who may choose to exercise their Rights in aggregate, or individually, but nowhere in the Bill of Rights is any Right of the community mentioned, only restrictions on the power thereof.
Individuals have moral obligations. A community does not.
Similarly, individuals have a relationship with their deity (or a choice to acknowledge none), and while a community may have a consensus in even this regard, the moral obligations of the individuals in the community (as part of those individuals' embraced religious views) do not become the moral obligations of a community.
Individuals have religious (moral) obligations, communities do not, unless they are united in their belief. We have a word for a group of people who are united in such belief: "church".
Moral obligations belonging to the individuals who, united in their moral beliefs make up a church, not a political entity under our Constitution.
The majority voting for something does not alter the individual moral obligations, it only imposes legal obligations. If the majority imposes a law that says you can't feed the hungry in the street, or give someone a blanket on a cold night, that doesn't alter moral obligations, it only interposes the arm of the law. A law which requires that certain actions be taken, no matter how moral in its intent, imposes a
legal obligation, which, while it may not remove any
moral obligations the individual may embrace,
also removes the choice from the individual to perform a moral act. That act has become a legal requirement, and the only matter of choice is to break the law, whether that law is good, bad, or indifferent.
I would contend that true moral obligations for an individual are imposed by their relationship with their deity (not of this world), not the external hand of the law, which imposes legal obligations (of this world).
At most those become legal obligations, imposed on the remainder of the community by either the representatives (who may not even speak for the majority--recall, 60% of Americans wanted Obamacare killed), or the majority of individuals, depending on how that imposition is structured.
That is no longer a question of morality, but of legality, not of morals, but of laws, no matter how the laws may reflect a consensus or majority of moral belief.
How often have we been told that "you can't legislate morality", by the very people who would now claim that we need legislation to impose a legal obligation to pay for the physical depredations of those suffered as a result of actions that many consider patently immoral, and who now claim that those who would not engage in those acts have a “moral duty” to subsidize relief of the results of those actions?
Because that is what we are talking about here. Not forgiveness and help rendered to the repentant—or even unrepentant, but generations of subsidized babies born out of wedlock, fully supported by those who marry and support and raise their own families. Food for those who will not work, provided by those who do. Housing for those who will not work, provided by those who live leaner as a result. Medical care for those who engage in dangerous sexual practices which, in scripture are considered by the Almighty an “abomination”. These are not people who are repentant and trying to change, but those who glory in their behaviour, who parade in the streets, who demand that those who meet their own individual moral obligations meet those financial obligations incurred by those who feel no moral obligation to live a less profligate and/or salacious life.
As for using the law to forcibly loot those who provide for their own sustenance, work hard, and try to live a moral life, to pay for those who will not, I have a moral duty to object.
This is in no wise charity, it is legal theft.
