Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Zero Tolerance & Unjust Laws



One may well ask: 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?' The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'

Martin Luther King Jr.

We have all being hearing and reading the horror stories about migrant children being separated from their parents when they arrive at the United States border, a definite strategy which the duplicitous Trump administration vigorously denies even all the evidence is there. They claim there are no cages to house these children, even though they are evident in photographs, and that the children are treated well, despite tapes of kids wailing while a jailer mocks them in the background.



This "zero tolerance" sure seems to be part of a barely veiled White Supremacist agenda and many in America are pushing back, including all four living former Presidential First Ladies. A fund has been established to help reunite deported families and it has already reached four million dollars.



Christian leaders have spoken out as well and this is encouraging because the Christian protests are almost universal, including evangelicals such as Franklin Graham, a staunch Trump supporter until now.

What is really chilling for me is that the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, quoted scripture, namely Romans 13, to justify what is happening. This is  a Pauline passage about submitting to authority and rulers, verses trotted out by pro-slavery Christians in the 19th century. Of course if the Sessions misuse of this passage was accurate then the Apostle Paul wouldn't have been put to death by the Romans, the American Revolution would be null and void, and every resistance movement the United States has ever supported should be deemed illegal.

Sessions is supposedly a United Methodist and now a group of more than 600 clergy and laity have brought charges against him. In their they have accused Sessions of child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of the doctrine of the United Methodist Church.

My anger about what is occurring in the States borders on rage at times. Instead I need to pray for those who are resisting this despicable and illegal tactic by the US government so that sanity and humanity and democracy will prevail. God has zero tolerance for the oppression of vulnerable children.

Thoughts?

Did you know that weather trading is a job? Today's Groundling blog
http://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2018/06/weather-trading-and-creation-care.html


2 comments:

Unknown said...

One does not have t be a religious person of any ilk to realize that what is happening in the USA is dead wrong - I just cannot understand why it is taking so long for American leaders to respond in anger to Trump's offensive actions and statements... and many of his close political allies as well...

Frank said...

I came across a recent twitter post about the triple crown winner "Justify" responding to an invitation from the White House to attend a reception honouring that achievement. Now, how a horse can actually respond to an invitation from the White House; well, I'm just not very clear about that. Nevertheless, it is reputed that a reply to the invitation stated to the effect: "If I wanted to meet a horse's ass, I would have come in second.". What more can be added?