BY JAMES NIMMO

I don’t presume that all the readers of my articles are gay-friendly but I do think it’s reasonable to see how homo-hatred is being used to cinch the noose of religious tyranny in the USA. I post these remarks of mine and the story link below as another example of the long view of the next 10 to 20 years in America and it’s addiction to religious fervor and not necessarily as proselytizing for legal recognition for gay/lesbian civil rights.

I know it’s fashionable to only post good news, sunny opinions, cheery bon mots on personal blogs, leaving the meaty, upsetting news to professional journalists with fact-checking and multiple sourcings, but sometimes the truth has to come out. I think this article demonstrates the need for that truth.

I’ve had uneasy thoughts since Caligula announced his run for president and I never had any sure conviction that Hillary Clinton’s election was a sure thing. I’ve been appalled since the first election victory of Barack Obama at the rancor and bigotry deliberately brewed by the extreme right wing political leaders of this country to corrupt the minds and encourage the actions of the hitherto closeted racists who think the 1950s was the best decade of American history. With Obama out of office the same techniques are being used now against moderates and progressives.

In all fields of endeavor the USA fails to match the more progressive and humane governments of other leading industrialized countries. There is no affordable health care, public schools are derided, women are still paid less than men and are not allowed to make their own reproductive health decisions, black people are the moving targets for police firearm practice, gays and lesbians are denied civil rights and must sue for each and every right that straights have. Congress will remain under the control of the most cruel incarnation of a political party ever seen since the end of World War II.

Whether or not Caligula is removed from office, the White House will be in the hands of a corporate mad dog or an impiously pious religious bigot who’s afraid to be alone in public with a woman not his wife. The Supreme Court is sewed up for the rest of the century with justices worthy of an Inquisition.

Step by step, the ladder of progress is going to be dismantled.

I know The Handmaid’s Tale is popular right now; I think brushing up on the fine points of The Crucible would be worth the time.

“The odds of these outcomes coming to pass appear very high, because while it will take a number of steps to get there, at each step the adverse outcome appears nearly inevitable. The Trump Administration is likely to replace between one and three more justices during the first four years of his term. Given that the conservative organizations spoon feeding Trump nominees, like the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom, know exactly what they’re doing and how to get there, replacements for Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer will almost certainly be in ideological lockstep with Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas.

“Favorable rulings now offer little defense in the long run; these conservative justices have made it clear they will use extremely narrow and contorted readings of prior decisions to side-step stare decisis [the principle of honoring precedents]. They will effectively get as many bites at the apple as they need to get the outcome they want. Afterwards, the precedents they set will last at least 20 years if Bowers v. Hardwick is any indication, and even longer if Trump gets a second or third nominee to the court. Remember, it took 75 years to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson.”

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/07/end-lgbtq-movement-know/

– James Nimmo lives in Oklahoma City and is an occasional contributor to The Oklahoma Observer