Tyranny of the majority
On December 4, the UCSF Synapse (the university student newspaper) published an anonymous article called “Proposition 8 and Our Society–The Majority Perspective”. You can find it here.
The author makes some valid points. First of all, one of the most fundamental rights on which our nation was founded is the right to freedom of speech and expression. No one should fear for their safety if they choose to share their views, even if, in fact especially when, those views conflict with the majority view in their community.
This does not mean, however, that a person has the right to share their views and not be disagreed with. The difference lies in whether the person is attacked or whether their opinions are attacked. If a conservative speaker comes to campus to share his or her views, they should not be assaulted, sent death threats, or have to fear for their personal safety. However, if a group of people assemble outside the hall where this person is speaking and hold a rally proclaiming their opposition to the conservative ideas being espoused, this is perfectly valid.
The author also takes issue with boycotts of businesses whose owners gave money to the proposition 8 campaign. This is not a reasonable argument. If a business owner makes money from people’s patronage of his or her business and then uses that money to support an idea that some of those people disagree with, they have every right to no longer spend money at that establishment, and to try to encourage others to do the same. They cannot burn the place down, or physically barricade it, but they can certainly try to convince people to join their boycott. This is a fundamental part of a free society.
Was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 in Alabama inappropriate? Were the organizers of the boycott making Montgomery an unsafe place for the people with more “traditional views”? Should they have stopped their boycott because it made some people uncomfortable to contemplate sitting next to African Americans on buses?
The anonymous author goes on to say “The fact is, we simply did what Americans do–we spoke up, we campaigned and we voted. I hope that I am not harassed or hated for exercising these rights.”
You are right, Anonymous, you should not be harassed for speaking your mind, campaigning, and voting. But you cannot ask people to refrain from exercising their own right to disagree with you. No one has the right to attack your person, but they have every right to attack your ideas.
And here we arrive at the true crux of the argument. The author says “I hope to see both sides of the spectrum voiced and tolerated in our UCSF community, realize there are differences, and let the opposite side live in peace.”
For some disagreements, this is absolutely logical. Should we build a museum in the park or not? Let’s speak out, vote, and whatever 51% of the people decides goes.
But when we are talking about fundamental rights, our society operates differently. The founding fathers of this nation made a conscious decision not to create a pure democracy where a 51% vote can decide any issue. They wrote a constitution guaranteeing certain inalienable rights that could not be taken away without an extensive process, one much more involved than a simple majority vote.
They did this because they foresaw that there would be times when smaller groups within society would be in danger of being persecuted by larger, majority groups. They built on the idea first laid out in Plato’s Republic, which later became known as the tyranny of the majority. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively in the Federalist Papers, most notably in Federalist #10 about this danger and how they planned to prevent it.
This is why the process of amending the constitution is so involved and difficult. It is possible to take rights away from a group of people, but only if 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures agree. In other words, 51 or 52% of any one state, or even all 50 states, is not enough.
The state cannot deny rights to one person or one group of people that it grants to others. This fundamental belief is enshrined in the 14th amendment to our constitution:
“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.”
You can certainly argue that the state has no business marrying people at all, and that a marriage should be a religious ceremony while the legal contract should be granted by the state. But either way, that which the state grants to one group of people, it cannot deny to another unless a super-majority is willing and able to change the Constitution of the nation itself.
Anonymous writes “Proposition 8 is not a civil rights issue. It is a moral issue.” But this is not true. If we were talking about whether the Catholic Church should marry homosexual people you could make the argument that it is a moral issue. But Prop 8 is about the rights that the state grants, making it by definition a civil rights issue.
As for the author’s “slippery slope” argument, it has been used again and again throughout history and has not held up. It is an argument used by people afraid of change to try to make others afraid of that same change. People argued that allowing black people to vote, or to marry white people, would spell the end of civil society. Others argued that rock and roll music would lead to the destruction of morality as we know it.
We do not draw the line arbitrarily. The author says that soon we will have 45 year-old men arguing that they should be able to marry 15 year-old boys. But we don’t allow 45 year-old people to marry 15 year-old people (at least not without parental and court consent) because we assume the 15 year-old might be getting manipulated. Similarly we don’t allow a man to marry more than one wife because we assume the women are being taken advantage of.
Each case must be examined individually. You cannot say that two consenting men or women should not be allowed to marry (an act that would not infringe on anyone else’s rights) because one day a man might try to marry a child (an act that would violate the rights of the child).
This is not about a line drawn arbitrarily in the sand, as the author argues. It is about a line etched indelibly into the very bedrock of our nation. Fifty-two percent of the state of California is a majority, by definition. And yet it is far short of the support needed to deny equal rights to any citizen or group of citizens of the United States.
I am glad that you wrote, Anonymous, though I wish you had put your true name behind your beliefs. I would like to think that UCSF is a place where, although you might be disagreed with vehemently, you would not be made to feel unsafe.
You have a right to your opinion and a right to make it heard if you so choose. A marketplace of ideas must be open to all comers. Even if 52% of us wanted to stop you from speaking, we would not have that right.
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