Tony Abbott was recently interviewed by a women’s magazine and asked – among other things – about his opinions on sex before marriage. According to the ABC’s quote (No, I didn’t buy the magazine!), he replied with some care: “It happens. I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question, I would say ... it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don't give it to someone lightly. That is what I would say."

Abbott’s comments have, as you might expect, provided plenty for people to talk about. Among the different responses, some have asked what right a politican has to tell others what to do.

In addressing that question, we need to recognise firstly that the objection is actually invalid. He was asked for an opinion in the first place, and proceeded not to say what everyone should do, but what advice he would give to his daughters!

Nevertheless, we might still ask: What right does a politician have to tell others how they should act? What does politics have to do with morality?

I would argue that politicians have every right to speak on issues of morality.

Take a step back for a moment. What is a politician elected to do? Are they not elected to lead the country – above all else, to set policy and to debate and vote on legislation that implements policy? Doesn’t that legislation tell everyone in the country what they can and can’t do? Doesn’t making laws about what we can and can’t (or at least should and shouldn’t) do, by it’s very nature, imply that moral judgements are being made? Tony Abbott has every right to make his opinions known. In fact, he has an obligation to do so.

Now it is true that there are some areas of life where it would not be right for politicians to make laws. It would not be right, for example, for the government to legislate that we must have sex before marriage any more than it would be right for them to legislate abstinence. But how do we decide what is legitimately covered by the government and what is not? Surely, in the things that are questionable – just as much as the things that are clearly not in the government’s pervue – politicians need to have just as much of a voice in debate as the rest of us.

Perhaps the most basic problem with the objection is the assumption that the morals of an individual are their private property. They aren’t. As we’ll be reminded in this morning’s sermon, no man is an island. Virtually everything we do affects others, even if only indirectly or subtlely.