False. Not thinking that Adultery is a criminal offense =/= a lack of morals and values.
COMMITING adultery means a lack of morals and values.
There is a clear and distinct difference here. One can easily find adultery immoral while not believing it is an offense punishable by incarceration.
An example of a related concept is someone repeatedly calling there spouse a "worthless pile of dog****". In my opinion, this is proof that the person making the comment lacks morals or values.
But, me not thinking it should be
illegal and punishable by incarceration to repeatedly call one's spouse a "worthless pile of dog****" is
not evidence that I approve of committing the action or find it moral.
The fallacy you are engaging in here is that you are trying to suggest a
causal factor in the results without anything but loose correlational data and subjective interpretation. It also fails to note that Breech of Contract is NOT a
criminal offense. The only most severe penalties regarding breech of contract are monetary in nature.
So, the question being posed is not "Should adultery be a criminal offense punishable by Jail time" it is "Should breech of marriage contract be a criminal offense"
This is asinine to the extreme.
The question asks that the marriage contract be treated differently than ALL other contracts.
All adultery can ever be is a breech of the marriage contract. No more, no less. It is no worse than verbally degrading one's partner incessently to produce the grounds for cruelty, but verbal abuse is no crime as it is protected under the first ammendemnt. But verbal abuse has just as many, if not MORE, negative emotional ramifications and is just as immoral as adultery does.
One does not gain "morality" by forcing it upon otehrs through laws and other coercive methods. One is moral if they themselves do not engage in despicable behaviors such as verbal abuse or adultery.
Redefining contract law to make breech of contract a criminal offense just to enforce one's own morality would create a very dangerous precedent.
You are assuming incorrectly, based on no actual evcidence besides what you have effectively invented on your own, that answering "no" to the question implies or reflects a lack of morality.
Had the question been: "Should there be an increase in monetary damages awaerded to the injurder party when a divorce is caused by adultery" then I would have said "Yes. It is a breech of contract and thus, contract law stipulates that an award for monetary dmages should be rendered".
The assumption it reflects a lack of morality to say that adultery should not be a criminal offense is absolutely incorrect.
Now if you want to argue that contract law should be altered in general so that ALL breeches of contract should be potential criminal offenses, that would be another issue entirely.
Because that is the ONLY way to intelligently argue that Adultery should be a criminal act, and it would require a complete top to bottom reformation of contract law.
I suppose that one could also argue that laaws regarding breach of the marriage contract alone should be reformed so that it is treated as a criminal offense.
But it should be noted that such a reformation would create a first ammendment issue given the verbal abuse example I have described above, as well as create a dangerous precednet based on other potential breeches of the marriage contract/ marital vows relating to "Honor, cherish and obey" or whatever terms are used in the vow exchange.
Imagine a world were any person who is in the heat of the moment during an argument with their spouse and says the word "bitch" or "asshole" can be tried and prosecuted for breech of contract.
Happy times!