America shrouds its theocracy for the most part. We do let it slip out by invoking the name of God on our other god, money, and at the end of oaths to the Constitution. For example, a new president’s last promise at 12:01 pm on Inauguration Day is, “So, help me, God,” although those words are only required in the Vice-President’s oath. It is not widely disputed that the founders wanted separation of church and state, but there is little dispute that America, for many years, has adopted a pseudo-theocratic stance; Congress begins every session with a prayer, and one swears a promise of truth on a religious book of doctrine in court. I was reminded of this Wednesday when an Alabama court declared a petri dish a womb. They further ruled that anyone disturbing the dish is guilty of wrongful death. Reasonable people can disagree, but the disturbing part of the ruling was the words of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker (his real name), who wrote, “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,”in his concurring opinion that invoked the Book of Genesis.
The conservative members of the Supreme Court—via Justice Samuel Alito—stuck their gavels in the air, gauging the judicial wind, and then leaked their ruling a month before overturning 50 years of precedent in the Roe v. Wade case. Justice Clarence Thomas also tested the climate of change. Under cover of Roe, Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that the justices “should reconsider” all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell”— referring to three cases having to do with contraception, same-sex relationships, and marriage essentially overturning fundamental privacy, due process, and equal protection rights.
Unsurprisingly, after this takeover of family and women’s rights in America, Republicans face- planted over the backlash. For the first time in American jurisprudence, the High Court reversed a right to equal protection, and this astounded Republicans, women particularly, fought back and fought back hard. Hoping to duck and cover behind red states, voters in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio overwhelmingly turned away initiatives to further restrict a woman’s right to choose. Even in Virginia, where rising GOP star Governor Glen Youngkin tried to thread the needle with an adjustment from a 6-week to a 15-week abortion ban, it was roundly rejected.
America has rediscovered Maya Angelou and her brilliant but simplistic observation: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” The translucent religiosity of the religious right on the Court would have women stay married, stay quiet, and incubate—no matter what. Today, the conservatives added another color to their rancid rainbow: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. So not only would women and families be forced to procreate, but they must not take any steps to control the size of their families with birth control and stay in a union that may be toxic, violent, and dangerous, maybe until death parts them. All hope abandon, ye who enter here is supposedly the inscription on the gates of hell but perhaps it will be the new inscription on the entrance of the Supreme Court.
Vote Against Guns