![]() ![]() The source of government power “is the people,” Oaks emphasized. Oaks has said that popular sovereignty "does not mean that mobs or other groups of people can intervene to intimidate or force government action.” 6, 2021, photo, supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. (Manuel Balce Ceneta, The Associated Press) In this Wednesday, Jan. “In 1987, Thurgood Marshall at the bicentennial of the federal Constitution, gave a really strong analysis of the sense in which the original Constitution failed so many members of our citizenry,” Durham said, “and, of course, he was specifically referring to the vote, and to slavery, and to the other real depredations that took place and were made available under and upheld under the Constitution before a number of amendments came into being.”įor her part, Durham appreciated the reminder “that the Constitution is not something that was written merely to govern our people in the 18th century,” she said, “but is a document by which we must live in which we must honor and implement in our century as well.” He pointed, for example, to the need for “inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote.”Ĭhristine Durham saw that message as one of Oaks’ most important points. document is “divinely inspired,” that does not mean that God “dictated every word and phrase.” Oaks began his exploration of the Constitution by noting that, while Latter-day Saints believe the founding U.S. Constitution "is not something that was written merely to govern our people in the 18th century." (Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune)Ĭhristine Durham, a former Utah Supreme Court justice shown in 2017, says the U.S. ![]() “If we’re going to do that, we’re not going to do it by doubling down on our prior political biases.” An evolving understanding Members have a “special obligation to help lead the country out of it,” Griffith said. The final panelist was Jane Wise, also an associate director for the center who has taught legal writing at BYU’s law school for more than 20 years.Īll the speakers felt Oaks was addressing the country’s “perilous moment,” as Griffith put it, summoning Latter-day Saints to “be better people than we have been and to do so with regard to the toxic political atmosphere that predominates” the nation. The discussion was moderated by the center’s founder, Cole Durham, and also included Paul Kerry, an associate director for the center and a professor of history at BYU. The panel was part of an annual program on religious freedom sponsored by Brigham Young University’s International Center for Law and Religious Studies. “It is quite remarkable that an apostle would choose to devote this time and place at conference to talk about the issue of constitutional literacy,” said Christine Durham, who retired from the Utah Supreme Court in 2017 after serving as chief justice for 10 years (she overlapped with Oaks for two or three years), “and of the importance of the kind of principles, particularly moral agency, that is embedded in our national Constitution.” Others who joined the former judge Wednesday in an online panel on Oaks’ sermon agreed about the speech’s timing. ![]() He detected, Griffith said, “a sense of urgency.in it - that this needs to be heard and understood now.”
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