It's only the beginning ...

 

Christopher Lee for The New York Times

It's only the beginning is apt as the SC, the worst in history, continues to deconstruct the Constitution as we speak whether it be separation of church and state or institutionalized discrimination as it matters not to the six zealots residing on the court in the year of our lord 2023. In my lifetime, never have I seen an institution such as this become endemically corrupt, ideologically driven to the extreme or self-aggrandizing to the max in acting as the final arbitrators of law driven by religious ideology in a once great nation known as America.

Let’s be honest about the painful reality: America has functioned as a full democracy — guaranteeing the franchise to all — for less than one human lifetime. In practice, our democracy is younger than me.

I was born in 1959, into an America rived by apartheid. When I was a child, the adults in my life were technically eligible to vote. However, in the Louisiana and Texas towns where I grew up, they were prevented from doing so by the social and cultural norms of the American South.

During the first two decades of my life, the American people finally acknowledged this truth and, to borrow a phrase, acted affirmatively to address it. A new generation of American founders mobilized into a great, multiracial movement, challenged our nation to live up to its ideals and initiated a national construction project on the foundation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment (which was violated with impunity for an entire century after the nation ratified it).

Diversity is key ...

The data suggests exactly the opposite. Study after study demonstrates that, across organizations, diversity enhances critical thinking, creativity and collaboration, as well as productivity, profitability and performance. It is a national tragedy that diversity is now a contested issue rather than a common interest.

It gets "better".

Damon Winter/The New York Times

From Dobbs to Hobby Lobby to Greece NY and 303 Creative v. Elentis, the worst SC in our lifetime, is opening up the floodgates designed to create an emergent theocracy where religion rules while critical thinking, education and the practice of science become increasingly marginalized by a virulent minority intent on dismantling our democracy one ruling at a time.

The Supreme Court has sided with a Christian graphic designer who refuses to create wedding websites for gay or lesbian couples. The result comes as little surprise. Writing for a six-justice conservative majority, Neil Gorsuch said that Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates the designer’s right to free speech because the state “seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.”

The decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis is the latest in a long-running battle between religious business owners and states seeking to protect the L.G.B.T.Q. community. In 2018, the court faced a similar question when a Colorado baker violated the same anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The court ruled in favor of the baker on narrow grounds, ducking the broader free speech question.

Now it has addressed that question in a ruling that is deeply significant. More than 20 states, including New York and California, have anti-discrimination laws like Colorado’s. By creating a free speech carve-out from these laws, the court’s ruling threatens to obliterate a vital tool in efforts to protect the L.G.B.T.Q. community at a time when it faces hatred and violence.

Civil war looms ...