Majority Rules with Non-Parenthetical Minority Rights

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.”

— Thomas Jefferson

In a republic such as ours, the majority rules, but the minority maintains what should theoretically be inalienable rights. I find all too often lately people forgetting or ignoring the latter half of that structure.

Topically: Very often you will hear, for example, people espousing a need for the Christian religion to have a role in the government of the United States because they are the majority. While the majority holds the most power to make legislative, political, etc. decisions, that power is limited when it limits the rights of the minority. Most of the people who think that we should be a "Christian nation" claim that their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion are being limited when they are forced to remove their religion from public spheres or religion-based legislation from the books. However, in order for them to have freedom of speech and religion in the way that this situation frames it, those same rights (among other rights) for non-Christian citizens would likely have to be limited, especially when religion tries to delve into the creation of new legislation.

Minority rights should not be parenthetical. They should not only exist when they are convenient for the majority. They are not scrap meat thrown to dogs under the table. They are a part of the main course, a part of the primary independent clause of the sentence, even if there are fewer people to eat that portion of the meal or speak that phrase in the sentence.¹ The right of the majority is never to take away the rights of the minority, regardless of whether a member of the majority thinks those rights are an issue of freedom of [x, y, z]. The next time you want to propose that your rights are being violated, I want you to ask yourself a quick question: Would I be limiting another person's rights by having the rights/freedom I want in this situation?

My right to swing my arm ends at your face. My rights are limited at the moment that they begin to interfere with yours, and vice versa. And that is how it should be.

^{1 If you were confused by the entire first half of that second to last paragraph, keep in mind that there are two metaphors going on simultaneously. Sorry. One of my fields in college was English.}