Justice Sunday II : The Minority Report

At the initial press conference that just happened, Harry Jackson offered to speak on behalf of African Americans (and minorities in general). Since he offered I decided to take him up on it. Now, for those of you who do not know who Harry Jackson is (like me) he is a block pastor from Washington, D.C. who heads the “High Impact Leadership Coalition”.

His stated that minorities have a greater stake in justice in (presumably than whites I guess). I would actually agree with him about that. It is true because minorities are currently suffering greater injustices in the US and always have. He said he wants the “right” judges in the high court; I think the pun was intended. He tried to imply that there were liberal, “maverick” judges who have been changing laws at the last minute. I have no idea what he was talking about.

Luckily, a journalist whose name I did not catch, called him on it. After Ted Haggard had spoken out against viewing the constitution as a living document, Harry Jackson was asked if he was not a living example of why the constitution as a living document is a good thing. The same question was also posed to Cathy Cleaver Ruse. Since they are both now able to own property and vote they should be very grateful that the US Constitution is a living document. Since they are Christians they should be very familiar with the importance of viewing important documents as things that change over time since the Bible is also a living document through the process of canonization.

After Harry dodged the question Cathy spoke about the process of amending the US Constitution as a difficult process that prevents willy nilly changes. She went on to say that the process of amending the US Constitution is an important process. This is good since that whole threat of a Constitutional ban on gay marriage is something they were threatening last year (more on that later).

Since Harry was willing to speak for an entire race, I decided to take the opportunity to ask Harry a pointed question on their behalf. I asked Mr. Jackson how he would like to see the impending SCOTUS nominations affect the death penalty in the US. The only Christian stance on the death penalty is against it. In light of the fact that a disproportionate number of minorities are murdered every year with the death penalty then the minority response would be to right that injustice.

While I was not surprised that Harry Jackson initially hemmed and hawed in an attempt the avoid the question / issue, after further prodding he conceded that the death penalty needs to have a moratorium at least until we can ensure that the innocent are never again murdered by the state. Kudos to Harry Jackson for acknowledging that. I hope he can influence some of the other leaders here on the behalf of minorities in the US.

To nominate any justice who does not support hearing death penalty cases and defending the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment would not be the Christian thing to do.