Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka


Today, May 17, 1954 the SCOTUS ended segregation in schools. The justices in their wisdom found that separate wasn't all that equal and therefor violated the 14th amendment to the Constitution which states:

Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. 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.


When people ask me why I care about things political or why I get my shorts in knot over Islamic fundamentalism, it is because of the Fourteenth Amendment. Supposedly, you, me, the Kennedys, and the drug addled wino sleeping in the park (also a Kennedy) are all equal before the law. In practice it doesn't always work that way, but we try. Under Islamic law you and I are tolerated if we pay a special tax, but have less rights than a faithful Muslim. Equality before the law is a concept worth defending. Just ask Taylor Strauder a black man who was convicted of murder by an all white jury in 1874 West Virginia because back then you had to be white to be on a jury. The SCOTUS reversed the conviction finding that the state had withheld equal protection from him due to his race.
Why the unborn continue to be harvested at will, in clear violation of the equal protection clause, is beyond me.

1 comment:

CultMan said...

Whoah boy.... don't get fired up like me... jeeesh, ou'd think folks was upseting da constitooshion or sumpin'....

Good stuff, man....