Stephen: Once again my point is not the morality of the times. The Old Testament is full of examples of behavior we would consider abhorrent in this enlightened age. I believe the Old Testament requires us stone to death our daughters who bring shame to our homes (something to that effect). I hope you are not equating some preacher shouting from a pulpit about what is morality to Rev. King locked away in solitary confinement over Easter weekend. Please reread this passage and substitute the word slavery for segregation and then lets talk again:

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness?