Welcome friends!
Did you see the Supreme Court finally got around to deciding whether the US Constitution allows state governments to discriminate against gay people in the context of marriage? Thankfully they affirmed what I hoped they would affirm, which is that it does not. The majority, consisting mostly of the justices considered the more liberal, affirmed that in their professional opinion the US Constitution is not consistent with people passing punitive laws against random people they don’t like at the state level no matter how many rural Confederate flag waving conservative yahoos, arm waving holy rollers, blinged out Catholic bishops, and ranting mullahs might be on board. Turns out most of the justices felt the Constitution respects the rights of the individual after all. Of course, all four of what are considered the more conservative justices dissented and vented, as one might have expected, while Republican presidential candidates predictably got their rage on and immediately starting talking about amending the Constitution to enshrine their particular prejudices in the law of the land. Like that’s ever going to happen. But with conservative Republicans it’s all about political grandstanding and speechifying; when it comes to actual governing and serious statesmanship they really couldn’t give a damn.
Justice Scalia, the troglodytic progeny of the 1980s conservative counterrevolution and Ronald Reagan’s legacy to the nation, fretted over the Court’s “threat to American democracy” and characterized it as a “judicial putsch.” In case you’re wondering why he used the rather unusual word “putsch,” which is a word of rather obvious Germanic origin and defined in Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government,” that would involve the long standing conservative conceit that everyone who disagrees with them is a Nazi. (If history is not your cup of tea the allusion here is to an event known colloquially as the Beer Hall Putsch that occurred early in the career of that paragon of mid-twentieth century social conservatism, Adolph Hitler. Seems he got a posse of two thousand armed goons together and marched into central Munich to seize power by force one day, similar to what I think arch-conservative Donald Trump might have had in mind when he suggested we all march on Washington after President Obama was elected. Herr Hitler was promptly tossed into jail for treason but then released a mere nine months later as the conservative powers in Germany realized how useful a violent racist nut job could be for their cause of keeping alles in ordnung. Sort of similar to the way the Republican Party courts neo-Nazis, skinheads, racists, “militias,” gun nuts, and every manner of conservative lunatic in the US today. I know, Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch is just like the Supreme Court ruling, right? Can’t really see it? Yeah, me too. I think it must be more of the juvenile Republican word game “I know you are but what am I?”)
Justice Roberts, one big step up the evolutionary ladder from Mr. Scalia and the legacy of conservative comedian George W. Bush, commented that in his opinion the decision “had nothing to do with the Constitution.” Really? Is he reading the same document as everyone else? And while it’s completely fine and expected that justices have somewhat different interpretations of the Constitution, which is why we need a Supreme Court in the first place, how monumentally irresponsible is it for him to claim the decision has nothing to do with the Constitution! No respect for the institution at all. The Attorney General for Texas Ken Paxton wasted no time backing up Justice Roberts by describing the decision as a “lawless ruling.” As Mr. Paxton is the top law enforcement official in Texas one might have expected him to announce he would therefore not comply with the ruling, it being lawless and all, but he didn’t go so far as bald faced treason. Apparently he still intends enforcing the law even though he believes it’s “lawless.” I know. Doesn’t take his job very seriously, does he?
Hey, I don’t like any number of Supreme Court decisions myself. As a random example, how about the Court treating corporations as people for purposes of campaign financing and just in general playing cozy with the economic big shots whenever possible. But do I go around claiming their decisions have nothing to do with the Constitution? No. They’re obviously looking at the Constitution. It’s just they’re looking at it through the eyes of people with perhaps more than an entirely healthy respect for wealth and power. It’s their job to interpret the Constitution and because I accept our democratic political system I accept their decisions. In those cases I guess we’ll just have to try to change the Constitution. I clearly have a lot more respect for the Supreme Court than does Justice Roberts. Ever wonder where all the violent conservative hate groups get their rabid anti-government rhetoric? Ever wonder how domestic conservative terrorist Timothy McVeigh reconciled himself to murdering one hundred and sixty eight innocent people in his twisted war against the ostensibly oppressive US government? Surprise! It might very well be based largely on the irresponsible utterances of conservative Supreme Court justices like Mr. Scalia and Mr. Roberts. According to them one needn’t respect the law at all. After all, the Supreme Court is just a bunch of Nazis springing a lawless “putsch” on an unsuspecting nation. The top law enforcement official in the state of Texas agrees. Thanks Ron and George W. You guys did a helluva job.
The Republican presidential candidates predictably went on a rampage as well. Mike Huckabee called the decision “an out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny.” Unlike Justice Scalia he chose to go with imagery from the Revolutionary War and denigrated the Supreme Court as an “imperial court” akin to the imperial British monarchy that a few centuries ago tried to get all uppity with British colonies in the New World. (I know; it’s just like that, isn’t it?) Once again we’re dealing with the conservative theme that he, and conservatives in general, are greater authorities on the US Constitution than the Supreme Court, a perspective Justices Scalia and Roberts would presumably heartily endorse. Southern crackpot Bobby Jindal piped up to claim no “earthly court” could alter the traditional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, evidently confusing the legal definition of marriage in this country, which like any other law is clearly under the purview of the judicial system here on planet Earth, with some sort of religious code that presumably can only be altered by some superhuman agency residing somewhere in the next dimension or more likely in some murky corner of Mr. Jindal’s own mind. Huckabee and Jindal called for a constitutional amendment to enshrine the time-honored tradition of gay bashing as the law of the land, as though anyone but the most rabid conservative extremist would have any interest in defiling the Constitution in this way at all.
A few conservative candidates weren’t exactly happy but not quite as looney tunes as Huckabee and Jindal, which makes me think there might be hope for the grand old party after all. Jeb Bush (yes, another one) stated flatly he opposed any effort to amend the Constitution over this issue and rather sensibly urged conservatives to turn their conversation to something a little more mainstream like religious freedom (including I hope a right I cherish in particular; the right to be free of other people’s religions). The conservative governor of the excruciatingly Midwestern state of Ohio suggested conservatives respect the ruling (and implicitly the Supreme Court itself) and just drop the matter of same sex marriage once and for all. He must know a little something about politics.
In marked contrast to conservative Republican leaders, leading Democratic candidates Hilary Clinton and Martin O’Malley joined with President Obama in expressing their support for the ruling. Not a whole lot of parity going on in this case, that’s for sure.
If I can just step back for a moment let me just say I’ve watched this issue of how gay people are treated under the law here in the US develop over the course of my lifetime from the underlying assumption of the bad old days that both formal legal and informal oppression of gay people was a moral imperative, through the early attempts of a few brave individuals to stand up for themselves and to patiently appeal to science and the better side of us all, to the ranting foaming at the mouth conservative backlash of the 80s and 90s, to finally today in the second decade of this twenty-first century an official affirmation from the more liberal justices in the highest court of the land that yes, gay people are people too, and the US Constitution does not grant other people the right to withhold legal rights and privileges from them based on religious feelings and prejudices alone. If you’re asking me, it’s a grand old day for a grand old country.
And if it’s not too irritating can I just give some words of advice and encouragement for all my conservative friends who see things differently? Take a deep breath. It’s OK. I know there’s been a lot of talk, but your (straight) marriage will not really be destroyed. No children will be harmed. No one will force you or your loved ones to become gay. No one will marry a horse. The human race will abide. Those were all just talking points designed to get you acting the fool and voting Republican. They’re not real issues. And look on the bright side: won’t it be nice to leave all the neurotic handwringing about sexual matters to places like Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East? I think so too. Let’s talk about something else for a while.
References
Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide. Ariane de Vogue and Jeremy Diamond. CNN. June 26, 2015. www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling/index.html.
US Supreme Court rules gay marriage is legal nationwide. BBS. June 26, 2015. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33290341.
Texas Officials Say They Can Deny Marriage Licenses. U.S. News and World Report. June 28, 2015. www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/06/28/paxton-state-workers-can-deny-licenses-to-same-sex-couples.
Who came out against Facebook’s rainbow flags? BBC. June 29, 2015. www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33313807.
Turkish police fire pepper spray at gay pride parade. Ashley Fantz, Gul Tuysuz, and Arwa Damon. CNN. June 29, 2015. www.cnn.com/2015/06/28/world/turkey-pride-parade-lgbt-violence/index.html.
