Just and unjust laws

Today is Martin Luther King Day, an American holiday to ponder what he did in his all too brief life. A lot of people would be glad to “interpret” him for us – to cleanse and sanitize his words so we can continue to ignore what he stood for.

To resist that we should read his words directly. Several people, such as Melissa McEwan of Shakesville mark today by posting Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written in 1963. It is long, but well worth reading. Even if you read it last year and the year before. It is worth reading because what is primarily in my mind this year is different from what was in my mind in previous years, so different parts of the letter resonate more strongly.

The letter talks about a great many things. I’ll focus today on what he wrote about civil disobedience and how a person should obey a just law but disobey an unjust law – and be prepared to take whatever punishment is given for that disobedience. The question is how to tell a just law from an unjust law? King wrote:

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

I need to stop there for a moment. Over the last 30 years as we LGBT people were fighting for our rights to live as we want and to love who we want our oppressors said that we violated eternal and natural law. They claimed natural law because they said having a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex was a violation of nature. Never mind that researchers found that more than 400 species had been observed to engage in same-sex relations.

As for eternal law, King surely means religious law. And conservative Christians still oppress us, claiming religious law. For example, about a month from now the United Methodist Church will hold a General Conference to decide how to treat LGBT people, or split because they can’t come to an agreement. There were recent news articles about the wife of the vice nasty guy got a job at a religious school that bans LGBT students and teachers.

So I don’t agree that a law should be determined to be just or unjust by whether if follows eternal or natural law. Thankfully, Dr. King goes on:

Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Sigh. I can hear people saying (though not in these words) that discriminating against someone uplifts the perpetrator because that action allows them to feel superior and isn’t that uplifting? King says no.

All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.

Ah, there we are.

Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Yes, legal is not the same as moral. Thank you, Dr. King, for the lesson.