In Good Company Marching toward 'somebodyness'

Jan 18, 2011

I re-read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” yesterday: my modest observance of the King holiday.

It’s as eloquent a defense of natural law against relativism and tyranny of the majority as you’ll find.

King grounded his case for racial equality on what was eternally true and right, rather than what he would elsewhere call “the ambiguities of history.” The young men marching with him were not rebels, he said, but:

“…standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

He appealed, in other words, to the truth of the dignity of each human person, insisting that until each individual was treated as a “somebody,” liberty for all of us was in danger.

Today people are proud to have marched with Dr. King, but it was not always so. The letter composed from the jail in Birmingham was written to Christians who had urged him not to march, not to stir up tensions.

Violent tension he emphatically did renounce, but King argues in favor of “creative tension.” He meant that Christians are here “to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

I read those words and think of the fifty to seventy-five thousand people who attend the March for Life in Washington annually. The numbers fluctuate—rising in lean political years and subsiding in fat ones-- but always they come, braving the snow or rain of Washington’s foulest weather.

It might be better understood as the “defending the personhood of the unborn” movement. Or the “movement to restore the principle that the government has no legitimate power over the inalienable rights of any class of persons.” But whatever it’s called, the marchers come to defend the defenseless, to afflict the complacent with creative tension, to stand as witnesses to their fellow citizens that America is better than the most liberal abortion regime in the Western world.

To borrow Joyce’s description of the Catholic Church, the March for Life has a delightful “here comes everybody” savor. Every age, every race, every place on the political spectrum is represented. (Buttons I’ve personally seen include not only Republicans and Democrats, but also Libertarians, Greens and even Anarchists for Life.)

You’ll find Jews, Episcopalians, Methodists, Orthodox and even Atheists For Life.

There are some nuts. If you seek a conspiracy theorist wearing a wacky sandwich board or a long-bearded prophet calling down fire upon an unrepentant people, you’ll find him. The network cameramen unfailingly do.

There are battle-weary activists with dour faces and gruesome posters. The cameramen find them, too.

Which is fine, they’re part of the family. Everyone’s part of the family, and that’s the point.

Celebrities turn up, too: cardinals, bishops, leaders of other religious groups, congressmen, senators, lawyers, pundits and figures from pop culture. You’ll find them right beside the Knights of Columbus councils and busloads of people from towns all across the country.

There are, in overwhelming numbers, women. Feminists for Life. Women who regret their abortions and are marching to warn others not to make their same mistake. Grandmothers. Mothers. Single women. Women who never bore children. All united in witness.

You will see more people with Down Syndrome and other disabilities than you are used to seeing, more than you would find in any other public setting. This will set you to thinking about what that signifies.

Mostly, though, there are young people:

• Well-bundled young parents pushing strollers, bouncing toddlers on their shoulders and holding hands with older kids against the crush of the crowd.

• Seminarians singing and praying the Rosary.

• Young nuns with smiling faces and habits in every hue.

• Youth groups from parishes and churches and colleges all over the country.

The marchers’ purpose is serious, but their mood is happy, because they can see the future all around them: the culture of death may hold sway today, but it is on it’s way out.

They are marching toward “somebodyness” for every human person, and they know there will come a day when those who marched are proud they stood for the right in the civil rights battle of our time.

Note: this is a substantially re-worked version of a column that originally ran in Faith & Family magazine.