Sin to break the law?

[Hawkeye916]

Recent (last few months) laws, namely the “stay at home order”, has cause me to rethink my adherence to strictly follow civil laws, in order to avoid venial sin. (Clearly breaking the law can be mortal as well, but many people break civil laws like not strictly following the speed limit, or letting your 20 year old take a sip of your beer, or not wearing a seatbelt, stuff like that.) I willingly followed my local stay at home order for a few months, but as time went on, I started to recognize that this whole situation might have more political motives than most people realize. People are allowing the government to literally control your every move in order to protect you from a virus that, in new studies, has been found to be 98-99% survival rate? Nah. I’m sorry. I’m not going to get close to strangers or touch things without sanitizing, but the government is not going to tell me I can’t go and visit my family. Especially when they are in the same mindset as me. I truly believe that it is an unjust law and unconstitutional to tell me, “you may not leave your house unless you absolutely NEED to.” In addiction, many sherifs in my state have said that they will not uphold the governers order. So, if I truly believe that these laws are unjust and unconstitutional, will I still be sinning by not following them?

 

[1ke]

I willingly followed my local stay at home order for a few months

And you should continue to do so.

I started to recognize that this whole situation might have more political motives than most people realize

Oh please stop with the conspiracy theories.

but the government is not going to tell me I can’t go and visit my family

I’m not aware of any states that have done so, the stay at home orders are not the same type of orders in some places outside of the United States. In the US the stay at home orders include refraining from gatherings larger than 10 people. And they do not refrain you from visiting other peoples’ homes.

Please post the specific law you were talking about.

I truly believe that it is an unjust law and unconstitutional

It is neither of those things.

So, if I truly believe that these laws are unjust and unconstitutional, will I still be sinning by not following them?

You are not the arbiter of what I just law is. And by the church’s criteria, this is one.

And so yes you need to follow it.

 

[puer.dei]

I truly believe that it is an unjust law and unconstitutional to tell me, “you may not leave your house unless you absolutely NEED to.”

Your beliefs don’t determine the law.

 

[MPat]

So, if I truly believe that these laws are unjust and unconstitutional, will I still be sinning by not following them?

See St. Thomas Aquinas “Summa Theologica” First Part of the Second Part, Question 96, especially articles 4 and 6 (Summa Theologica).

Merely demonstrating that law is unjust is not yet sufficient for conclusion that you should ignore it (“Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance, for which cause a man should even yield his right,”).

And have you actually demonstrated that “these laws are unjust and unconstitutional”? Or is that just a guess?

People are allowing the government to literally control your every move in order to protect you from a virus that, in new studies, has been found to be 98-99% survival rate?

It is not exactly new that majority of people who get the virus survive. Actually, much of the problem is caused by the fact that many do not even notice they got the virus - and spread it. And they might spread it to others - and in some groups the virus is much more deadly.

I willingly followed my local stay at home order for a few months, but as time went on, I started to recognize that this whole situation might have more political motives than most people realize.

You mean you did not notice that people are often panicking and that leads to overreacting? In various ways - “It is the virus and we are all going to die!”, “The lockdown is going to lead to economic crisis and we are all going to die!”, “The lockdown is going to lead to dictatorship and we are all going to die!”… Well, at least try not to panic yourself.