Category: Law

Civil Rights Legislation in the US

sculpture of martin luther king jr memorial in gray concrete wall
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Despite mountains of paper, oceans of ink, and general support for civil rights, civil rights legislation remains controversial. This article summarizes the key parts of the current US civil rights legislation, including the Constitutional basis and disparate impact. It touches on the relationship between morality, religion, and rights. Finally, the article addresses some key ideas in the Bible about civil rights and their source.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

What are civil rights?

A common definition is “Civil rights refer to the fundamental rights and freedoms granted to individuals by a government and are protected by law.”[1] This definition invites several questions.

  1. What are rights? Things that people are allowed to do? Things that people are allowed to abstain from doing? How do rights interact between individuals and groups?
  2. What rights are fundamental? The US Declaration of Independence includes the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Are there others? The US Supreme Court and International Courts have interpreted fundamental rights broadly. For example, the term civil rights now includes a right to privacy, which was never mentioned in any of the founding documents but came from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976).
  3. What are freedoms? The ability to do whatever you want? The ability to do whatever God created you to do? Who decides, the individual, the society, or someone or something else?
  4. Who “grants” civil rights? God? The king? In a government of, by, and for the people, wouldn’t the people be “granting” such rights to themselves?
  5. What is “government?” Definitionally, it is “the action or manner of controlling or regulating a nation, organization, or people.” What are the jurisdictional limitations? Does the US government “grant” civil rights to residents of Mauritania? Is the United Nations a government, and does it grant civil rights?
  6. Who are individuals? Citizens? Visitors? Men? Women? Members of a certain race or socioeconomic class? No civilization in history has granted equal rights to every member of society. No society in history has ever held that every person should have exactly equal civil rights (criminals and the physically incompetent often have their rights limited by governments). Ancient civilizations from Rome to Xian to Tenochtitlan have held the emperor to be divine, thereby exercising rights far beyond anyone else. In Hammurabi’s Babylon, the Amelia (elites) had far greater protections than the Mushkenum (freemen) and the Ardu (slaves).
  7. Which law protects civil rights? English common law? Muslim Sharia law? Christian canon law? Hindu Manu Smriti? Buddhist Sangha regulations? Something else?
  8. Should certain groups be protected? If so, which ones? How do you define these groups? Under Sharia, Christians and Jews are dhimmi, not enjoying the same rights and liberties as Muslims. Under the Hindu caste law, each caste has more rights than those below.
  9. What is the relationship between civil rights law and other categories of law, such as civil liberties law? Does a statute or regulation requiring people to use preferred pronouns in addressing a transgender individual violate the US Constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech?

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Are US Elections Fair – My day as a poll worker

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Citizens across the country worry about America. Voters wonder if their vote counts. In my admittedly limited time as a poll worker, I believe that it does.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

“Stop the Steal” was a common phrase used by conservatives in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential Election. Official counts indicated that former Vice President and long-time senator Joe Biden had prevailed over incumbent President Donald Trump. Trump, however, refused to concede the election. His followers peacefully protested, but a few rioted, at the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January, although claims that this was a coup are overblown.

The election occurred during the greatest pandemic since 1918, COVID-19. As a result, mail-in ballots and non-traditional voting skyrocketed. Safeguards like correcting voter rolls (eliminating ineligible people) and requiring official photo identification were neglected or even opposed. Election laws written for another time were incapable of coping with modern technologies and a global pandemic. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg poured $419 million of his private fortune into mail-in, get-out-the-vote (GOTV), and shadier efforts for the Democratic Party in 2020.[1] Other deep-pocketed influencers did the same. Their money gave the Democrats a huge advantage in the gray zones of elections where laws are opaque and lawyers lurk. Small-time voter fraud occurred, but whether it was widespread enough to change the election is doubtful. We will probably never know for sure.

Concerned about the past and wanting to improve things in the future, I chose to serve as a poll worker in Raleigh County, West Virginia on 5 November 2024. I wanted to see firsthand how my corner of the system worked. To put the bottom line up front, I was encouraged by what I saw.

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Abortion – Questions and Answers

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Real answers for Christians on tough questions about abortion. What are we being told by pro-abortion forces? What is the truth? What does the Bible say? What does (real) science say?

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

From a Christian perspective, a preborn child is a complete human person (Psalm 139:13-18). The most questioned Biblical passage on abortion (Exodus 21:22-23), when correctly interpreted, supports the personhood of the pre-born. Therefore, abortion is murder. Though Christian women have abortions, and people who claim to be Christians work at abortion clinics, there is no question that abortion is antithetical to Christianity and cannot be countenanced. To participate in abortion in any way is a grave sin.

Isn’t abortion a modern issue?

Abortion has been around for thousands of years.

“…we are not permitted, since murder has been prohibited to us once and for all, even to destroy the fetus in the womb… It makes no difference whether one destroys a life that has already been born or one that is in the process of birth.” Tertullian, Apology 9.8.

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Economic Data, Business Needs, Privacy, and Freedom

Economic data
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Economic data is vital to running a business, organization, or nation. Governments and businesses gather a lot of it, and analyze it extensively, to provide better services to stakeholders. However, these same entities use this same data to delve into personal lives and influence personal behavior. Ordinary people need to understand all of these uses, know the benefits, and yet guard themselves and others.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

The world is awash in data. The government obtains data, typically by querying governmental institutions, requiring reports from private industry and organizations, and surveying groups of stakeholders. No other organization could gather information of such depth and scope. Even if some other organization attempted to gather such a volume of data, they would not provide it free to inquirers. After collection, the government checks, analyzes, categorizes, and interprets the data. Finally, the government acts on and distributes the data, hopefully for the benefit of all its citizens. Governments may use information derived from data to position resources, cut crime, minimize poverty, prevent disease, aid business, and otherwise do good.

There are many dangers when anyone has too much information. Governments have so much data that they can violate privacy and manipulate people. Big tech and large companies, from Amazon to Zhejiang, can do the same. The literature is flooded with studies trying to discover the proper use of data and information in the modern world.

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Beyond Isms

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Modern society believes that “isms” are the greatest ills in society, and that destroying existing power brokers and structures is the only way to alleviate them. We are sadly mistaken, and our people will pay a terrible price for this delusion. Father forgive us, for we do not know what we are doing.  

By Mark D, Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

A football coach loses his job after reading a comment aloud to his team, written by a player, that someone considers racially insensitive. A seminarian’s career collapses after a woman complains that he made her feel “uncomfortable.” A bakery owned by Christians is nearly driven out of business by a nearby college after some students accuse the proprietors of racism. Four border patrol agents on horseback, using reins to control their steeds, are punished after President Biden promised punishment, despite being cleared of whipping Haitian immigrants.[1] The esteemed Martin Luther King Jr. said that there were three evils in the world, racism, poverty, and war.[2] Sixty years later, “isms,” whether racism, sexism, or something else, are seen as the greatest evils in America. Some would say that America is the greatest evil in the world.

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Critical Race Theory

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Critical race theory is a hot topic throughout the United States. What is it? Is it good, bad, or something else? Is it useful, or merely something more to divide us?

By Mark D, Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Across the United States, several teachers and at least one coach have been fired for their opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT). Parents have rebelled at the teaching of CRT in schools, and are being hotly opposed by educational administrators and the political left. Outside the classroom, CRT has dominated the discourse about race and gender in America. It is worthwhile to investigate it.

The Tenets of Critical Race Theory

Merriam Webster defines “race” as any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.[1] Some hold that race is a modern European construct intended to “scientifically” justify white supremacy by classifying and devaluing all non-whites. In reality, civilizations have divided people by differences in cultural and physical traits since the dawn of time. The Hindu Vedas sharply discriminate between Aryans and Dasyu, the indigenous people of the Indian subcontinent and perennial enemies of the Aryans, characterizing the Dasyu as “phallus worshipers,” “dark-skinned,” and “harsh spoken.” The Bible notes the Ethiopians as a “people tall and smooth skinned (Isaiah 18:7).” The Muslim writer Said al Andalusi (d. 1070) wrote:

“For those who live furthest to the north between the last of the seven climates and the limits of the inhabited world, the excessive distance of the sun in relation to the zenith line makes the air cold and the atmosphere thick. Their temperaments are therefore frigid, their humors raw, their bellies gross, their color pale, their hair long and lank. Thus they lack keenness of understanding and clarity of intelligence, and are overcome by ignorance and dullness, lack of discernment, and stupidity. Such are the Slavs, the Bulgars, and their neighbors. For those peoples on the other hand who live near and beyond the equinoctial line to the limit of the inhabited world in the south, the long presence of the sun at the zenith makes the air hot and the atmosphere thin. Because of this their temperaments become hot and their humors fiery, their color black and their hair wooly. They lack self-control and steadiness of mind and are overcome by fickleness, foolishness, and ignorance. Such are the blacks, who live at the extremity of the land of Ethiopia, the Nubians, the Zanj, and the like.”[2]

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