@ebrown p,
ebrown p wrote:
The group think here is impressive, but you all have got this completely wrong.
This man is the boy refusing to stand up for the pledge. Yes, we cheer when a grade school kid refuses to participate in a ritual he doesn't agree with. And we are impressed with the ability to resist the pressure of social expectation. But then, when this boy becomes an adult and refuses to participate in a ritual he doesn't agree with-- we get upset?
I don't understand the need of people here to crush anyone who dares to hold a belief they don't share. This man is doing no harm-- to society or to anyone else. There is no reason to force him to act against his conscience.
We either accept diversity and respect people with different opinions, or we quite pretending to believe in freedom.
ebrown: The two situations that you are discussing are alike, but not in the way you think. You are erroneously comparing the justice of the peace (a state actor) to a student (not a state actor). You must compare the justice of the peace (a state actor) to the teacher (another state actor).
Please refer to the following language in the Fourteenth Amendment:
"No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The Fourteenth Amendment secures individual rights by prohibiting the STATE from encroaching upon those rights. A STATE cannot act except through STATE ACTORS. A justice of the peace is a state actor. He is paid by the state government (or by a political subdivision of the state) to perform ministerial, non-discretionary duties. One of the non-discretionary duties that are required of a justice of the peace is to solemnize marriages. A state (by and through its state actors) may not deny to any person within its juridiction the equal protection of the laws. As state actors, government officials (e.g., justices of the peace) do not have any discretion whatsoever to discriminate against individual citizens on the basis of race. No one is above the law. The justice of the peace who refused to solemnize an interracial marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment (the Supreme Law of the Land).
In this situation, the individuals who were discriminated against on the basis of their race are standing up for their rights secured by the Constitution. The individuals who were turned away by a state actor because of their race are the ones who are comparable to the child who refused to say the pledge. (As a state actor, a teacher cannot force a child to say the pledge without violating the child's rights secured by the Constitution.)
Because you made an erroneous comparison, ebrown p, you're the one who got this completely wrong.
