Pride (American Revelation IV, Part Nine)

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow

In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?

One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed up on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss.

~U2, Pride (In the name of Love)

This morning, in a 6-3 decision the Supreme Court outlawed discrimination against LGBT people in employment per existing Federal non-discrimination laws. Perhaps because fate is ironic, the court opinion was written by Neil Gorsuch, who voted with the majority. Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas dissented, unsurprisingly.

First off, congratulations to my LGBT brothers and sisters.

And during Pride month! Happy Pride, indeed.

As some of y'all may know I was serving in the United States Air Force when Don't Ask, Don't Tell became policy and was implemented over the course of the next year. I also can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when that policy was struck down and open service for LGBT service members went into effect.

And I've worked with lots of LGBT people since those days, and as such I've seen how they have dealt with each step of the way in the struggle to claim their rights.

Considering my life experience and even my current job, I've worked and even lived with gay people and I honestly see no damn reason why they should not have all the same rights as I do. For the record when I fully came around to supporting LGBT rights, I was still a conservative.


If you don't feel that way, fuck you. I have nothing better to say to you than that.

We as a people need to stop giving bigotry equal time with civilization and decency. It's just that damned simple.

Second, I've spent all day watching conservatives lose their shit on Twitter.

They're calling Gorsuch a traitor, never mind that it appears the plaintiff's lawyers appear to have crafted a very Originalist and Textualist argument that would appeal to his sensibilities. Good call, looks like.

If you want to know why I cannot stand modern "Conservatism" and Trumpism and what the Republican Party has become, it's because I used to be a conservative and a Republican, not in spite of that fact. According to these fucking people one is not allowed to have their own beliefs or sensibilities, and remain part of the Tribe. If one does, even a lifetime of conservative jurisprudence with clear, obvious conservative goals in mind does not save one from the wrath of the mob.

I can't think of anything much more anti-conservative than that.

And that's exactly what these fucking people are, a mob of shitty little haters.

They are not, in any meaningful sense of the definition of that word, conservative. Were they so, they would note that Judge Gorsuch literally wrote his legal opinion from a conservative perspective.

You've betrayed the legacy of Antonin Scalia! they cried.

Except Gorsuch peppered his opinion with Scalia-authored precedents and quotes, if anything further cementing the legacy of the conservative Lion of the Court, who by the way had close friendships with a number of liberal Justices down through the years.

I think old Tony is gonna be just fine, conservative purity-cult be damned.

I'm going to warn you, again, that "Conservatives" don't really give a damn about America, or the Constitution, or the courts, or the law, and when those things cease to be tools for implementing right-wing theonomic "principles" and only those particular shitty beliefs, they cease to be useful and in the way of modern transactional "Conservatism" they will be cast aside in favor of other tools.

Just as the police, no matter how militarized, have ultimately proven ineffective at quelling dissent, and will find themselves cast into the outer darkness.

Trump is going down, too, certainly in November if not before, somehow.

There are already rumblings from the edge-cases and the fascists that "Regular People" (i.e. hard-right nut cases) are on the hunt for a "Pinochet-like" figure.

Except one of the problems with that is that the military is now openly affirming that the oath is to the Constitution and its leaders are issuing warnings against "blind obedience" to the the President.

Even with Trump and an executive branch laden with his cronies, the machinery of the United States of America as it exists is insufficient for the far-right's purposes and Constitutionally unable to support its shitty goals. Conservatism as a coherent philosophy, likewise. All that makes me wonder, who will the "Conservatives" end up "Supporting" next?

Anti-government insurgents, that would be my guess.

Pocket this victory and move on to the next target, but above all, keep your eye on the ball and do not become complacent, y'all. We need to get Trump and the Republicans out of power, and then we need to be prepared for what will come next.

If they'll throw out their own for having their own opinions or marrying gay campaign staffers, it's a safe bet that none of us are safe from these motherfuckers.

Republicans have lost control of the narrative, as their power slips, these fucking fascist wannabes will become violent.

Be aware, Beware, but since...as I've found recently...even at this late of a date there are those we can still reach, my own personal addendum is...be fair.

It does not matter that they would not do the same if things were reversed. Sometimes you have to be fair and do the decent thing for your own sake, not theirs.

Part Eight.
Part Ten.