As another November approaches, existing dialogue on social issues will continue to be usurped by each party as a way to drive skeptical voters to one side of the fence or the other and subsequently, one party or the other.
Though this treatment of social issues as agents of political polarization rather than actual problems to be solved is a clear problem in American politics today, there exists a prevailing trend in the way these issues are dealt with that threatens to compromise the most important principle of truly democratic government: majority rule. When asked to define democracy, most Americans' definitions are likely colored by their own perceptions of the ideals our government and its architects espouse. Many of the responses likely include catch phrases like "liberty," "freedom" and "elections."
In today's era of apologist policy-making, the tenet that is most often forgotten at both the state and national levels is the very concept of majority rule. As hot-button topics like religious phrasing in the Pledge of Allegiance are once more dragged under intense public scrutiny, the way the government deals with them should become increasingly perplexing to any individual with some knowledge of United States government.
The first case in which the government has entertained ludicrous arguments that fly in the face of our principles as citizens of a democratic republic in recent memory is the Supreme Court case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow. The original plaintiff in the suit, Michael Newdow, accused the school his daughter attended of violating his daughter's constitutional right to free religious exercise by making the Pledge of Allegiance, which contain the words "under God," a staple of every school day. Though Newdow's claim was eventually rebuked, the justices missed the mark by failing to acknowledge that public policy should generally be reflective of the opinions of the majority of its constituents. Statistically speaking, the United States happens to be a predominantly religious nation. According to a study taken in 2001, 85 percent of American citizens identify with some religion as compared to an only 15 percent agnostic or atheist population.
Whatever we believe about our rights as individuals to express our bodies of beliefs, we cannot expect the government to subjugate the rights of the majority in an attempt to protect the rights of a distinctly non-persecuted minority. James Madison acknowledged in Federalist 51 that "different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens" and warned against a tyranny of the majority. Without compulsion or consequence however there exists no tyranny and without the existence of the palpable sense of persecution and injustice, members of a minority ought not presume that their rights merit more protection than those of the majority which helped bestow upon them the ones they do possess.
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