Inherit The Wind: An Inequitable Law

Laws are one of the most important parts in the life of a human today and they have been for many centuries. They decide what people in that region can or cannot do and if you break a law you get punishment, sometimes a fine, sometimes a jail sentence, and sometimes you can even get put on death row. But do citizens have to follow a law if it is unjust? In the play, Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, this occurred, Bertram Cates, a public school teacher in Hillsboro, Tennessee in 1925 broke an unjust law called the Butler Act. The Butler Act prohibits public school teacher from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin, or in simpler words, teachers couldn’t teach their students the theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin.
An inequitable law should be repealed because it denies citizens their Constitutional rights. The First Amendment of the Constitution grants citizens may rights and freedoms. One of these rights is freedom of religion or lack thereof. The first amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”(U.S Constitution, Amendment I). The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America and it protects many of its citizens’ rights. Bertram Cates had his 1st Amendment right taken by the Butler Act because it stopped him from expressing his opinion which is protected under the “freedom of speech” all residents of the U.S. have. Additionally, in Inherit The Wind, while talking to Rachel after his arrest Cates says, “You know why I did it. I had the book in my hand, Hunter’s Civic Biology. I opened it up, and read my sophomore science class Chapter 17, Darwin’s Origin of Species. All it says is that man wasn’t just stuck here like a geranium in a flower pot;
After jury passed its verdict, that Bertram Cates is guilty, Cates asks Drummond “But what’s going to happen now? I haven’t got a job. I’ll bet they won’t even let me back in the boarding house. DRUMMOND: Sure it’s gonna be tough, it’s not gonna be any church social for a while. But you’ll live. And while they’re making you sweat remember- you’ve helped the next fella. CATES: What do you mean? DRUMMOND: You don’t suppose this kind of thing is ever finished, do you? Tomorrow it’ll be something else- and another fella will have to stand up. And you've helped give him the guts to do it” (Lawrence and Lee 123). All it takes for society to evolve is for one person to stand up for what they believe in and what is right. That starts a domino effect, people realize what is happening is wrong and they stand up for it too. What Cates did, standing up to a law like the Butler Act probably inspired other people to stand up to other unjust laws and organizations. This happened again very recently, a brave person stood up for what he believed in and changed his society for the better. “Liu Xiaobo took part in the student protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989. For that, he was sentenced to two years in prison. Later he served three years in a labor camp for having criticized China's one-party system. For over twenty years, Liu has fought for a more open and democratic China. He demands that the Chinese authorities