We pause this weekend to celebrate a milestone in peaceful, Christian civil disobedience.  That milestone is the life and work of MLK.  Lest anyone accuse me of being an opportunist, realize that I shared much of this at my June 1 hearing before the Board of Law Examiners, and previously on this site here and also in one of my most creative writing exercises – the one that communicated my one and only discussion with the Kansas AG who fired me as deputy attorney general and consumer chief, June, 2007 and then again on that same blog, here.  I also made use  of MLK in my own jailhouse letter to Judge Patrick Kelly (in 1991) that the Indiana authorities have recently used to deny me licensure based upon my religiously-based political ideals.  Here.

Thus I am not just trotting MLK out at this time to make some points against the Indiana Supreme Court and its minions. 

Speaking of that collection of postmodern jurists, this is from my December 8-filed federal petition:

153.  Dr. Bowman informed Plaintiff that he placed his values and morals higher than legal obligations and by so doing shared much in common with early church, including being at odds with the state.  That Plaintiff’s conservative political and Roman Catholic views were the primary focus of Dr. Bowman’s interviews are evident throughout Dr. Bowman’s final report and are used to support her conclusion that Plaintiff suffered from Personality Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified.

154,  Dr. Bowman’s report stated that:

“Like many people of faith of past millennia, he firmly believes he is obligated as a Christian to put obedience to God’s laws above human laws.”  Id.;  “He considers his [former protest activities] an integral part of his Roman Catholic Christian faith and considers his actions morally right.”  Bowman report at p.4;

155.  Upon information and belief this report influenced the final Board of Law Examiner’s final report stating that:

“He testified [as] to his obligation to disobey laws that contradicted his religious beliefs under certain circumstances. [He further] indicated that he would not obey certain court orders and judgments  that he believed to be unjust.  [It is the policy of the  Indiana court]  that a member of the Indiana bar must obey Indiana law and federal law, even when doing so violates an attorney’s conscience, and that an avowed willingness not to do so is disqualifying.”  Board report at pp.29-30.

** end of excerpts from federal complaint

It is clear from Dr. Elizabeth Bowman’s report that she strongly disliked me — as do most pro-abortion and anti-Catholic ideologues.    Still, she did seem to understand that my views were as old as Western Civilization itself and for that reason had some historic justification.  What is far more difficult to understand — and even frightening — is how three of the allegedly “top tier” attorneys in the State of Indiana  (to be named in subsequent posts), as well as seven others on the Board, as well as Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard could NOT realize that the above paragraph flies directly in the face of the following excerpts from America’s best known jailhouse missive:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. …  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.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether 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 St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law 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. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

So wrote Martin Luther King, Jr. from a Birmingham jail.

Do you agree?  Would you break the law if it was unjust as he describes?

If yes, then sign the Manhattan Declaration.  Here is more on that fine work of Christian Resistance.

But — If the answer is yes, and if you are planning to apply to the Indiana bar one day, then you might just want to keep that a secret.  For answering questions about that — the same ones that I was asked to address — or signing the Manhattan Declaration — just might get one denied admission to practice law in Indiana until and unless one  finds a new religion. 

One that does not challenge the State  — or is at least to the liking of Chief Justice Randall Shepard.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under Brown v. Bowman, Great dissidents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.