Social Justice and Johnson Amendment - Literature review Example

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Social Justice and Johnson Amendment

In 1954, Lyndon B. Johnson enacted a tax code amendment. This amendment sought to prevent non-profit organizations including church, religious charities, universities, and other scientific non-profit organizations from participating in political campaigns. Doing so would result in their losing tax-exempt status. Though it was only seen as an effort to keep the church away from the state and raised little public outrage at that time, it again gained public attention nearly six decades later, with many people claiming that this amendment violates the First Amendment rights of the said organizations. During his election campaigns, President Trump offered to repeal this Amendment to give these non-profits their voice back and gained much support from different sections of society, including the evangelic (Pierre, 2017). It is a complex issue to analyze in the light of social justice because Johnson acted in accordance with the ‘separation of church and state’ principle upheld by the founders and Trump is trying to give them the much needed First Amendment rights. Nelson (2005) says that such a complex political issue needs to be analyzed in the light of different frameworks but these frameworks need to be evaluated for their accuracy of description of the world and their political implications.

Sandel (2009) rightly points out that justice is a complex issue because in real life it has a ‘judgmental strand’. In other words, in a society, it often becomes a difficult task to decide what virtues are to be honored and what are to be neglected. Sandel (2009) identifies three approaches to justice- welfare, freedom and virtue. Looking into an issue in the light of these three elements will help get a better insight into the issue. Through the examples of Afghan goatherds and a trolley car, Sandel shows that the way people view a decision as justice or injustice will vary according to the background information they possess or the convictions they have. Therefore, deciding what is just in the real society, especially in the political arena, is often a difficult task. A perfect example of this dilemma is seen in the introduction of the 1954 Johnson amendment and the effort by President Donald Trump to repeal the same.

It is necessary to start the discussion associated with this decision with the note that when the Johnson Amendment came in 1954, it was not as controversial as it has become now with President Trump’s claim that he would destroy it. The reason, as mentioned by Sandel (2009) through his examples of trolley and Afghan goatherds, is that the conviction of people in 1954 might be different from what people feel about the decision these days.

A look into the history proves that the Founding Fathers wanted the State to be secular and not influenced by religion in any way. Therefore, this view was converted into the term “separation between church and state” by Thomas Jefferson and was loved by all Americans as an essential element of their democracy. According to Barton (2013), this decision was taken by the Founding Fathers because they had witnessed the way the Church created problems in the European politics. To ensure equality to all and maximize happiness, the Founding Fathers decided that religion should not interfere in religion. However, this in no way means that American Constitution is against religion but it is the most religion-friendly Constitution on earth. The Constitution protects religious equality by law and allows people their right to practice any religion they like.

One has to assume that it is in the light of these two elements in the American society that people saw the Johnson Amendment of 1954. People only considered it as a utilitarian approach that would benefit the society. According to Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, the best way to deal with dilemmas in the political arena is to adopt such policies which offer satisfaction to the maximum number of stakeholders even though it involves infringing the rights or the rest (Sandel, 2009). When viewed in this light, one can observe that the decision to prevent religious organizations from openly interfering in political affairs and support or oppose any political leaders can only be viewed as the right one. In this case, the only stakeholders whose rights are infringed are the religious leaders themselves.

However, viewing the issue from the light of libertarian theory of rights, it is not just from the part of the state to engage in such actions which violate the liberty of people. Libertarianism advocates for a minimal state that does not interfere much in the affairs of people, even if it is issues like harming themselves, redistribution of wealth, and moral legislation (Sandel, 2009). Analyzing the Johnson Amendment issue from the light of this, one can see that a state that protects individual liberty has no right to interfere in the right to speech of any person, including pastors and other non-profit organizations. Church or other organizations have the right to have their voice heard in the public and the government is not supposed to use its coercive force to silence them.

Obviously, there is the argument that church and other non-profit organizations are supposed to be governed by regulations because they are enjoying the tax-exempt status offered by the government. However, the libertarian reply is that the decision to offer tax-exemption is taken by the people through their government and the non-profits are in no way responsible for that decision and they have not promised to surrender their Constitutional right to speech to get that benefit. Trying to stop these people from exercising their right to expression is a major violation of their fundamental rights according to libertarians.

Before reaching the decision that the Johnson Amendment was an injustice because it infringes the free of expression, it is important to see what Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy says about freedom. According to him, there is a term that contrasts ‘autonomy’, that is, ‘heteronomy’ (Sandel, 2009). ‘Heteronomy’ means acting according to determinations given outside of someone. If this is the case, the action by Johnson in 1954 can be viewed as a continuation of the efforts by the Founding Fathers to separate the church and the state. From this point of view, it is obvious that Johnson was not wholly responsible for the action he did.

However, there is the caution from Kant that an action becomes moral only when the motive behind that action is moral (Sandel, 2009). If that is the case, it becomes necessary to examine the factors that made Johnson take such a decision. A search on the net proves that very little is available regarding the undercurrents that made Johnson reach such a decision but from what is available, it is clear that Johnson was targeting some right-wing organizations which were supporting his opponents in the election (Hopkins, 2016). From this observation, the result again goes against Johnson because the motive was not moral.

Now, regarding Trump’s decision to repeal the same, most of the above points are again relevant. A look into the utilitarian tenets show that the action of Trump is injustice because in the effort to appease the interests of the few non-profits, Trump is going to sacrifice the interests of the majority of Americans who support the concept of ‘separation of church and state’. In addition, it is pointed out by experts that if the church and other non-profits are allowed to intervene in political campaigning, they will be able to use their tax-exempt status to hide the funding different political parties receive. This will affect the interests of the large number of American tax-payers whose money is used to offer tax-exempt status to these non-profits. Secondly, from the political campaign of President Trump, it is seen that he had promised evangelical Christian pastors in Orlando that he would do away with the Amendment and won the support of a huge majority of white evangelicals (Bailey, 2017). Thus, as Kant points out, the motive behind Trump’s decision is under scrutiny.

However, as Kant points out, a just constitution is aimed at ‘harmonizing each individual’s freedom with that of everyone else’. If President Trump’s move is analyzed in this way, one can see that it is important to allow all people, including non-profits, their right to voice their opinion in every matter in the society, including politics and advertently or inadvertently, Trump has done that. Denying the non-profits a chance to interfere in the political affairs is an infringement of this right and repealing this Amendment is an act of justice according to the tenets of libertarian philosophy. However, this step is wrong according to the utilitarian concept because this will have adverse effect on the whole American society through the interference of church in state affairs and the misuse of their tax-exempt status for political funding.

In conclusion, it is clear that justice, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder. There are so many theories of justice and each offers a different interpretation of the situation. However, what seems the most appropriate is Kant’s claim that the ‘rightfulness’ of a public law should be tested by checking whether it obligates each citizen as if they had given consent. Here, again, the chicken or egg question comes into play because it is evident that in a pluralist society it is not possible to get unanimous opinion on any subject because like the theories discussed, individual interpretation of what is justice also varies widely.