# Majority rights **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2000, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687 "2000-08-09T11:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2000, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/21 "2000-08-13T02:37:53Z")
So how do you define who the majority is in the first place? Should a majority of people in South Carolina decide whether or not the Confederate battle flag will fly over the state capitol? Or should it be a majority of people in the United States who make that decision? At what point would you say, “This is a local matter and the rest of us should butt out?” Who gets to decide what is or is not a violation of basic and fundamental human rights? Are you entitled simply to ignore the will of the majority whenever you disagree with it? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2000, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/22 "2000-08-13T02:51:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pink Slinky \* > \*\*Majority rules. > > As a black-hispanic woman, this idea scares the crap out of me. … I would not want to live in a world where the majority opinion was the deciding factor in what laws are passed or repealed. \*\* So you’re saying the will of the majority is utterly irrelevant, that it should \*\* never \*\* be considered when laws are made? Is there never a time when you ought to accede to the will of the majority even when you disagree with it profoundly? I’m waiting for someone to drag up that wretched cliche about “the tyranny of the majority” … ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/23 "2000-08-14T13:15:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LonesomePolecat \* > > Is there never a time when you ought to accede to the will of the majority even when you disagree with it profoundly? > > I’m waiting for someone to drag up that wretched cliche about “the tyranny of the majority” … \*\* I did say majority opinion should not be the _deciding_ factor. Our elected officials should be well informed. They should also have the big picture in mind when making and repealing policy. Leading by opinion poll makes for bad public policy. **The tyranny of the majority should not go unchallanged!** Sorry PoleCat, couldn’t resist. ---
**Author:** ![philipdalton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/85e7bf/32.png) [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/24 "2024-01-23T13:09:08Z")
The “Clause 28” law came into effect in 1988. During the eighties the age of consent for homosexual practices was 21 and therefore anyone who tried to remotely teach children about homosexuality was almost immediately stopped in their tracks. The subject was so taboo after all. A typical example of this is the song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which was effectively a sex education lesson set to music, being banned by the BBC. Margaret Thatcher did a famous speech in which she lamented the fact that schoolchildren were “being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay”. She was right, they were. I took biology in the fourth and fifth year, in the second year I did it I came home school with a textbook called “Biology For Life”, which contained a whole chapter dealing with the subject of sex, pregnancy, masturbation and contraception. In this chapter there was a small passage on homosexuality explaining that two persons of the same sex could copulate, “by one man putting the penis in the anus of the other, a practice known as anal intercourse”. When my parents found this book they were almost unable to believe what they were reading, at the time they had been Jehovah’s Witnesses for almost a decade, and so were naturally more shocked by that sort of thing anyway, but even if they hadn’t turned to that religion the passage may still have had the same effect. Eventually, my mother, being the more sensitive one, was reduced to tears by it. When our friends and relatives came to visit us, they almost immediately showed the passage to them in order to stress its shock value. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/25 "2024-01-23T13:13:53Z")
> [@Gomez](#): > > Before I start I wholly understand that it is important to make sure that minorities feel integrated into society, however I think that it is coming to a point now where the will of the majority is in danger of being sidelined so that people who are, frankly, obsessed with this can pursue their goals. The Founding Fathers were concerned with “the tyranny of the majority”. Now, in 2024, the “tyranny of the minority” seems to be a much bigger concern. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/26 "2024-01-23T14:58:52Z")
In case anyone missed it, this thread can legally drink in the US. It’s nearly old enough to rent a car! ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/27 "2024-01-23T15:01:02Z")
_The majority rules_ is a childish interpretation of the concept of democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/28 "2024-01-23T15:26:06Z")
Kind of nice when someone raises one of these old zombie threads to see how much the general level of discussion has improved around this place in the last 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/29 "2024-01-23T15:43:14Z")
Do I have this right? Your parents – who were viscerally shocked and appalled by what they viewed as offensive pornography – reacted by sharing said pornography with their friends? Hm. ---
**Author:** ![philipdalton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/85e7bf/32.png) [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/30 "2024-01-23T16:01:24Z")
There was a reason why they did this. My father had an old workmate who would pass around copies of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, either when it was still banned or at around about the time when its publishers had recently been found “not guilty” of breaching the Obscene Publications Act. However, this would have been done more for purposes of amusement than anything else. The reason why they showed the passage in the biology textbook which they considered to be obscene to their friends and relatives was to alert them to what was being taught in schools at the time. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687/31 "2024-01-23T16:58:47Z")
Clearly not a thread that needed to be revived after 23 years. Closed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/majority-rights/28687.md?page=1)