day no. 16,028: when law and morality are made to be in opposition

"When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose." - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Immoral legislation forces the governed to either despise the law or to despise morality. Either they are forced to fight back against their sense of civic dutifulness or they must fight their sense of civility, but something has to give. You cannot suppress morality with laws and maintain order. Either a respect for immoral law will lead to lawlessness or a respect for morality will lead to a usurpation of immoral law. Legal immorality and illegal morality end the same way: the corruption of those who accept them.