Justice & Law Quote by Tom Allen

The line is built to sound like common sense while quietly redefining what “rights” means in a fight over equality. By framing protections for a targeted group as “special rights,” Allen uses a classic political move: recast anti-discrimination law as an unfair bonus rather than a correction to a documented imbalance. It’s the rhetoric of symmetry - the comforting claim that the system is already level, so any further effort looks like favoritism.

“The laws work both ways” is the key tell. On its face, it’s procedural and calming: neutral rules, neutral outcomes. Subtextually, it treats power as evenly distributed and harm as reciprocal, turning the debate into a tug-of-war between equivalent sides. That move is especially useful in contentious policy arenas - LGBTQ protections, disability access, affirmative action, religious exemptions - where opponents often argue that being asked not to discriminate is itself a form of discrimination against them. The phrase “both ways” invites the listener to imagine a zero-sum ledger: if one group gains protection, another must be losing something.

Allen’s intent reads less like a legal argument than a boundary-setting one. He’s signaling moderation and restraint, positioning himself against “identity politics” without openly attacking the protected class. It’s persuasive because it borrows the moral authority of civil rights language while sanding off its original edge: civil rights becomes not a tool to disrupt entrenched inequity, but a proof that disruption is no longer necessary.