Law of the Land

In a reminder that the past is never truly past, several U.S. senators this week debated the merits of re-evaluating the 14th amendment to our Constitution. In addition, a federal judge also revisited the 14th amendment for entirely different purposes.

The intention of the 14th amendment (before corporate lawyers sunk their claws into it) was to replace the law of blood with the law of the land.

Before the Civil War, the law of blood trumped the law of the land. The law of blood was dominant for far longer in other countries (Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc). The law of blood basically holds that regardless of how long you have lived on the land, your liberties are based on your blood.

After the 14th amendment, the Constitution was (in theory) the law of the land. The 14th amendment aimed to destroy the law of blood by stating that any person born in the United States was inherently born with a non-negotiable array of rights, protections, and liberties, regardless of what genes did or did not flow through their blood.

Now, certain of our "leaders" are proposing that we remove this protection. Their intent is to deprive the American-born children of "illegals" of American citizenship. So, in other words, the law of blood would once again be paramount. The law of the land would not apply to people unless they passed the law of blood.

The 14th ammendment also came into play this week regarding gay marriage. A federal judge ruled that it was unconstitutional for the voters of California to vote to deprive gay people the right to marry.

This judge reminded us that democracy does mean majority rule, but it does NOT mean that the majority can vote to deprive any minority of equal protection under the law. When people vote to deprive gay people the same rights as heterosexuals, that is not democracy; that is mob rule.

Those who oppose giving citizenship to the native-born children of immigrants and those who oppose equal rights for gays are wrong twice-over.

Firstly, they are wrong morally. And secondly, they are wrong logically.

If we are to create whole classes of people who were born in the United States but who are not protected by the law of the land by virtue of having failed the law of blood, we are then creating whole classes of people who are non-citizens.

And if we are to create whole classes of non-citizens, why would we expect them to follow the laws of a land whose laws do not protect them? It cuts both ways; our government protects certain rights and in return demands certain loyalties.

If we do not extend protection and citizenship to certain people, what moral or legal or logical right do we have to demand their loyalty to the laws and government which exclude them?

Such bigotry does not make any of us more secure. It merely divides us against each other, castigating millions of us into a purgatorical limbo in which the government does not grant us its protection and does not deserve our loyalty.

Perhaps Jay-Z put it best. "This ain't black vs. white, my people, we off that / Please tell Bill O'Reilly to fall back / Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls / This is 2010, not 1864."