Happy Birthday, MLK

While reading from Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail today, I found this section fascinating (all highlights are mine):

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when 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 Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. 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. To use the words of Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship, and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn't segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote.

Clearly, the context of this letter was the racial struggles of Alabama in the early 1960s, but it seems we should be able to take some lessons for today. I'd like to hope we can follow Dr. King's lead in the creation of just laws -- man-made codes that square with the law of God -- but each interest group defines "just" and "law of God" to suit its own perspective.

Can laws against same-sex marriage simultaneously fall under the category of "squaring with the law of God" and "degrading the human personality"? How does Dr. King's final implication -- that a law is just if the minority had the unhampered ability to vote -- fit in? If there's a conflict among those statements, how to resolve the conflict? Was Dr. King's reference to "human personality" referring to traits that all human beings share? If so, how does that play into the same-sex marriage debate?

In my mind, the law of God takes precedence (I already hear Barry Lynn fans screaming about how I want to impose a theocracy -- spare me), but I don't claim there are any easy answers. I think it's interesting, however, that Dr. King's writings are plentiful enough to provide competing perspectives with the ammunition they seek to defend themselves. In some ways, it's like Scripture itself -- it takes some time and guidance to read it correctly, and it can provide guidance or it can be misconstrued to place inappropriate weight or perspective on an issue.

I pray for wisdom in voting for laws that square with the law of God; that uplift human personality; that avoid giving me a false sense of superiority; that I'm willing to follow in my own life, not just impose on others; and that are implemented with the understanding of how they impact the minority in question.