BY BOB BEARDEN
Now that the deeply conservative and now deeply political Supreme Court Six have struck down 50 years of precedent in destroying a woman’s right to control her own body, Justice Thomas seems clearly to be telegraphing in his accompanying opinion that the six Supremes will now look to go after marriage equality, contraception and other precedent-setting decisions to overturn them.
And work hard to set this nation back to where he seems to think it should be to a time when people of color, women and others were subjugated as second-class citizens, granting only a few old white people – mostly men – the rights that our Constitution has clearly given through its living documentation to all segments of our society. Like, say, the 13th and 14th amendments.
Make no mistake, that is obviously the plan and don’t think he is just sitting there by himself salivating over doing just that. He and Alito along with the three Trump appointees [which I consider to be wrongly appointed by a man now openly proven to be a crook and totally unfit for office] want to totally eviscerate millions of our citizens’ rights and take us back to a time when only a few old white guys controlled everyone else’s rights or the lack thereof.
Or since they have lashed out at women [which make up more than half of the population of this nation] Thomas and his not-so-merry cabal of self-righteous nabobs now seem bent on literally destroying all constitutional rights, save those of whom they belong to. When we entered the 21st century we were supposed to be in an age of enlightenment, not a draconian self-righteous age of backward steps towards the dark ages.
We have one political party that is being fueled by outlandish and outrageous conspiracy theories and which rabidly claim to believe [slavishly, I might add] in lies, especially the Big Lie of a stolen election which is just about the largest conspiracy theory of them all. They claim not to believe in science or medicine. A science and a medical profession that has extended the life expectancy of millions upon millions of our fellow citizens and provided us with medical miracles that have virtually eradicated literally hundreds of diseases that once decimated entire populations.
We are seemly in the thrall of a group of people that denies facts in favor of lies and wants to make women chattels again and seeks to deny millions of their fellow citizens their rights. We are in the thrall of a fascist movement the likes of which haven’t been seen since the dark days of pre-World War II Nazification of Germany and the literal murder of millions of innocent victims who did no harm, save to belong to a religion that the fascists used to justify their murder.
And if we give control of Congress back to those people who are totally obedient to that cause, we are almost certain they will do their level best to destroy our fragile experiment in democracy. I pray that I am wrong, but when you see elected politicians say things like “if Jesus had a gun, then he wouldn’t have died on the cross” you have to realize that if people like that get in control of our government, democracy as we know it will soon not exist.
We have elected officials all over this nation who believe that lie. And they scare the living daylights out of me. No true Christian can possibly believe that would ever be true. Jesus Christ was the Prince of Peace; he rejected violence out of hand because he knew that violence only leads to more violence and never solves nor resolves anything.
And how many of the people who are celebrating the overturn of Roe v. Wade will be willing to raise an unwanted baby from a young teenager who was raped by someone or is now required to birth a child she had from being raped by a relative? What does it say about our society that it who would require that child to raise a child in that situation? What would Jesus say she should do!
Who will be responsible for the baby visited upon children who are raped and who will be willing to raise a child of rape? Why should the rape victim be required to raise that child? That makes them a victim twice over. Where is the righteousness in that? Does the Lord offer praise that those who are raped get to care for their rapist’s child? I think not!
It’s a crazy world we are coming to when women are relegated to second-class citizens as opposed to men who are free to impregnate women without facing any real consequences for their actions other than an “atta boy, way to go stud!”
Bob Bearden is chair of the Board of Trustees of the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation and a member of Mayflower Congregational Church, UCC in Oklahoma City.
