Yesterday's march on the National Mall by as many as 500,000 people - Latinos, Whites, Blacks, Asians, etc. - in favor of reasonable, humane immigration laws got me thinking. You know how the diehard, anti-immigrant types - approximately 20% of the population (and Repbulicans in the House of Representatives, apparently) who say that "illegal immigrants should be declared felons and offered no temporary work program," according to a new Washington Post poll - like to spout the slogan "what part of illegal don't you understand? They use it, obviously, to try and bludgeon their political adversaries into submission. The implcation, of course, is that if you see America as a beacon of liberty and believe our immigration laws are completely screwed up.Well, here's a retort for those people: "What part of IMMORAL don't you understand?" As in, declaring 12 million immmigrants "felons" and deporting them from the United States. That's immoral. As in, exploiting those immigrants as a permanent underclass with no path to citizenship int his country? That's "immoral." As in railing against illegal immigrants, which right-wing Republican politicians love to do, while those same politicians take wads of money from companies that employ and exploit illegal immigrants? That's immmoral.
A few other examples of "legal" but "immoral" situations, where a higher law needs to prevail?
*It was totally LEGAL to own slaves in America during the 1700s and 1800s. But it was also IMMORAL.
*It was LEGAL when the Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that Dred Scott could never be free, but it was also IMMORAL.
*It was LEGAL for women to not have the right to vote until 1920, but it was also IMMORAL.
*It was LEGAL for sweatshops to employ children and work them 80 hours a week in horrible conditions, but it was also IMMORAL.
*It was LEGAL for the United States to seize land belonging to Native Americans, but it was also, arguably, IMMORAL.
*It was/is LEGAL to discriminate in this country against gay people, but it was/is also IMMORAL.
*It was/is LEGAL for polluters to trash our environment, but it was/is also IMMORAL.
*It was/is LEGAL for employers to pay their workers a completely unreasonable minimum wage, but it is (arguably) also IMMORAL.
I could go on and on. The point is, there have been many laws in our country's history - and we won't even get into world history, such as the "LEGAL" Soviet gulag or the "legal" Holocaust or whatever - that were completely IMMORAL. The question is, can our friends on the far right, many of whom claim to be followers of Jesus, a man who believed in a higher morality but was crucified "LEGALLY" under Roman practice of the day. Now here's a question: What part of "irony" do these right-wingers not understand?