Unjust Laws and Civil Disobedience
Different circumstances have led to lawmakers often coming up with laws whose purpose is sometimes received as unjust by a significant majority. Other situations have seen lawmakers using incorrect ways while seeking just goals. In both scenarios, the process of making laws creates rules that do not portray the worth of the underlying population. Such cases place the public under legal doctrines and restrictions that are against their sense of fairness. Excerpts from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” define King’s belief that an unjust law is no law at all. He defines unjust laws as those that are not in-line with moral laws. The human laws that are not based on natural law (Jr). Over the years, a range of laws that are unjust have been passed by different policymakers worldwide. The most common are the ones discriminating against different groups from receiving various rights. In the USA, such egregious laws are common on the state level (Emanuela Carbonara). A good example are laws restricting homosexuals from receiving equal treatment.
The state of Colorado in 1993 approved a state constitutional amendment that barred homosexuals the right to laws protecting them from discrimination. Several religious institutions and other members of the public became concerned that laws safeguarding the LGBT community from discrimination seek to legitimize homosexual conduct threatening the notion of the traditional family. Through a group identified as Colorado for Family Values, the concerned parties led efforts erasing protecting homosexuals in all anti-discrimination policies in Colorado. A 54 percent majority vote saw the passing of Amendment 2 following a ballot measure (Constitutional Rights Foundation). Colorado Amendment 2 places no protection status on the basis of homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation. It states that “Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities, or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of, or entitle any persons or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the Constitution shall be in all respects self-executing.”
Supporters of Colorado’s Amendment 2 argue that the law is not taking away any essential rights from the state’s LGBT community but rather places the power to enact special rights for the gays and lesbians to the citizens themselves from few appointed officials. Additionally, the supporters of the amendment claim that Colorado’s homosexual community does not experience widespread discrimination and mistreatment that other LGBT members are facing in other states (Constitutional Rights Foundation). According to the supporters, Colorado’s gay community comprises individuals that are wealthy, better educated as well as more politically organized than a wider population of others residing in other areas of the state. Such factors reflect a vibrant gay community in Colorado that is safe from victimization by discrimination and even looks to disrupt the traditional family setting. However, Colorado’s Amendment 2 is still an unjust law.
The law is unjust on several grounds, one being that the amendment distinguishes gays and lesbians and purposefully denies them the right to use the established political institutions in enacting policies that safeguard the LGBT members from discrimination. It is a law that segregates to single out the LGBT group as the target for enforcing the amendment. Amendment 2 is merely a cover to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians who are already a group that is politically out of favor (Constitutional Rights Foundation). As Martin Luther King claims on the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “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.” Similarly to the segregation laws discriminating against colored persons that King was fighting, Colorado Amendment 2 is one placed upon the affected LGBT minority by the majority who are powerful. In this case, a majority vote by Colorado voters upheld the passing of the amendment, yet members of the LGBT community formed a small number of the voters. Also, the law is unjust since it is too general and sweeping. The amendment actually wipes out various state employment anti-discrimination provisions that applied to the LGBT community. The law facilitates the sweeping away of all anti-discrimination protections for LGBT members such as police regulations, state employee firing policies, learning institutions non-discriminatory rules as well as restrictions in the insurance sector (Constitutional Rights Foundation). According to King’s letter, such a law is unjust in its application despite being just on the face. The amendment is discriminatory since it restricts citizens from exercising the privileges of the first-amendment of peaceful protest. Therefore, seen as Amendment 2 does not bear a legitimate purpose and plainly targets to hurt the gay minority of Colorado, it is a violation of the clause enacting equal protection for all citizens in the USA.
An act of civil disobedience would be appropriate in responding to Colorado’s Amendment 2. Civil disobedience has always been essential in creating social changes. Civil disobedience calls for the society to deny legislators to overrule their consciences. Through civil disobedience, the people are not made perpetrators of injustice by the government. Civil disobedience becomes relevant in changing Colorado’s Amendment 2 since the state claims that the LGBT minority do not require special protection while similar to other minorities like women, the gay experience victimization from discrimination and are obliged to the law’s protection. Additionally, supporters of the amendment argue that it does away with laws encouraging the gay lifestyle, but contrary recognizing the LGBT rights aims to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Civil disobedience would also be effective in giving a voice to the gay population of Colorado, who seem suppressed by a majority population unaware of their existence. As David Thoreau would put it in his writings regarding resistance to civil government, democracy cannot cure harmful governments since majorities by virtue of being many also lack in wisdom and justice (Thoreau). Thoreau calls for honest men to rebel and revolutionize against governments, which he describes as generally corrupt agents and unjust. Thoreau believes that individuals are bestowed with the right to assume to take the appropriate action at any time. Hence, civil disobedience against Colorado’s Amendment 2 would be justified as acting from an individual’s conscience. One effective method of civil disobedience against the amendment would be street marches and protests. Organizing protests would make the public aware of the LGBT community members’ opinions. It can influence their opinion regarding the amendment triggering the public to also call for adjusting the amendment. Additionally, these protests allow protestors to take direct actions in efforts to directly implement desirable amendments themselves.
Works Cited
Constitutional Rights Foundation. BRIA 12 4 c Should Homosexuals Have the Right to Laws Protecting Them From Discrimination? 2020 . 14 May 2020.
Emanuela Carbonara, Georg von Wangenhein, and Francesco Parisi. “Unjust laws and illegal norms.” International Review of Law and Economics (2012): 285-299.
Jr, Martin Luther King. Excerpt from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. 16 April 1963.
Thoreau, David. “Resistance to Civil Government.” Aesthetic Papers. 1849. 1-2.