Eight years ago last week, a man with a gun walked into Pulse Nightclub and murdered 49 people. 49 innocent people who were out dancing and having drinks with their friends. The gunman targeted Pulse Nightclub because it was an LGBTQ+ club. The gunman was looking for LGBTQ+ people to kill. He sought out queer people to kill (for simplicity I’m using the term “queer” here to cover the entire spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community). Of course, not everyone there was queer…because, in case you don’t know, queer people generally have straight friends…we don’t discriminate. 49 members of the community were gunned down for being queer or being friends with queer people.
It’s hard to remember Pulse Nightclub. It’s painful and traumatic. I didn’t live in Florida at the time, but it didn’t matter. LGBTQ+ people all over the country were as shocked and horrified as I was. I felt like we were being hunted…and we were. I think there were some questions about whether the gunman was gay. And I remember thinking, “you’d rather commit mass murder and die than be gay.” Seriously?! If that was true, it might be one of the saddest things ever.
Now, hold that thought in your head, Pulse Nightclub, 49 people dead, feeling hunted, the fear of going out…and imagine listening to a Supreme Court justice’s wife talk about how angry it makes her to look at a Pride flag in June. How much she hates it and wants to hang her own flag instead. And she described her flag (which she said she created in her mind) as white with yellow and orange flames framing the Italian word “vergogna” in the middle. The Italian word “vergogna” means “shame.” She created a flag in her head because she is so angry looking at the pride flag. Of course, first, she’d have to take down her US flag which she had hanging upside down at her house. She said this after almost daring the media to come after her because she’ll “get them.” Take that in for a moment…a US Supreme Court justice’s wife said that. And not just that, a US Supreme Court justice had the American flag hanging upside down at his own home. Just like the insurgents who stormed the US Capital on January 6th.
Now Justice Alito claims it was his wife who hung the flag upside down…way to throw her under the bus. There’s been statements from neighbors contradicting the justice’s report. He is also on tape talking about the necessity of returning to Christian nationalism, although this country was founded on religious freedom so it’s not a return, it’s a turn as far to the right as you can go. He also talked about not being able to really work with the other side…meaning people without his same views. Let me just say this…he’s a fucking US Supreme Court justice! His whole job is listening to different sides of arguments and applying the law fairly, regardless of his own opinions…which are supposed to remain private. That explains a lot about the current state of the Supreme Court.
I used to be intrigued by the Supreme Court and the justices. I admired them…some more than others. I got to hear oral arguments in front of them once, while I was in law school. They step out from behind the red curtains…it’s all very official, and intimidating. I used to read their decisions, and the dissenting opinions, to understand the laws that they were upholding or striking down. That was when I believed that the Supreme Court did uphold the constitution, legal precedents, and the settled law of this country. The legal term, as I was taught in law school, is “stare decisis” meaning “the thing is settled.”
Enter 2024, where the court overturned a 50-year precedent and the settled law of this country, because they personally object to abortion. They took away reproductive freedom from every woman in this country with that ruling. They also took away many options, sometimes the only option, women had for basic healthcare, because of all the clinics that were forced to close. And they have laid the groundwork to block access to gender affirming care for trans people…because women no longer have control over their own bodies. My ability to decide what I can and cannot do to my body has been stripped from me, stripped from all women. Perhaps the Supreme Court is going to make our decisions for us…we should have at least had a drink first, before the women of this nation were screwed. Healthcare is a personal matter. Reproductive healthcare even more so.
It’s Pride month and I want to be all out and loud and proud but I’m not. I’m scared. I’m scared for our country. I’m scared for all LGBTQ+ people in this nation. I remember when Jerry Falwell said that 9-11 was God’s punishment for homosexuality. I thought that was about as low as a person could go with their personal views. But WTF!?? Look who’s talking now! The impartial, not allowed to get involved in politics, 5 conservative justices of the Supreme Court. The ones who promised to be impartial and stated they would not overturn settled law… and they would not allow their personal beliefs to influence their decisions, even about abortion.
And they didn’t, until they actually started hearing cases…and then the precedents started to fall…Roe, affirmative action, bump stocks on guns…one by one they all fall down. And the always helpful, and rarely involved, Clarence Thomas, has said the court needs to revisit marriage equality…also settled law. Since when do the justices announce what kinds of cases they want so they can direct the laws and the country in the way they personally feel it should go? Never mind the 75% of people in this country who support marriage equality. And never mind that people in this country don’t get to decide whether they think I should have the right to marry the person I love or not. I don’t need your approval and frankly, I don’t want your opinion. It’s still illegal to legislate hatred.
We are a nation that has lost its way. We are an arrogant, self-righteous nation that is fucked up. And my wife and I are not the the problem. When 65% of republicans say voting for a convicted felon for president is not an issue to them…we have a problem. We are a nation that refuses to learn…or maybe we’re just reluctant to learn…or can’t see well with our heads up our asses. I’m angry. I’m angry and sad and scared.
It’s asinine to claim that you are upholding the constitution while you dismantle the very rights that are the law in this country…now past tense. If you want to stick with the framers of the constitution, which is the standard rational, then all the rights are for white men. The framers were interested in protecting the rights of wealthy, white, landowners…in other words, themselves. So, there would be no right to vote for women or any people of color, it would be illegal to be gay, we’d still have segregation, shit we’d still have slavery, if you stick with the framers. Because their concerns were for people like them. And be clear it’s men like them. The constitution is designed to be a living document that evolves as a country evolves, because the framers could not have imagined the world as it is now.
I heard President Biden talking about current issues with our country, or the leaders of our country, and he said they are “old ghosts in new garments.” My first thought was, who wears “garments?” No one since the 1800’s. But he’s right. We’re a better nation when our goal is equality…at least theoretically. We’re a better nation when we are moving forward and not recreating the mistakes of the past. We’re a better nation when all different people can marry…different races and same sexes. We’re a better nation when we don’t allow cruel and unusual punishment. When we require Miranda rights for people in police custody. When we acknowledge that all people should be equal, and we set our eyes on equality as our goal. Title IX, probable cause, the right to an attorney, non-discrimination, freedom of speech…and the list goes on. We’re a better nation when we follow our own fucking laws.
So, what do I do? What do WE do? Something’s gotta give or we’re in a huge crisis…more accurately, we’re in a huge crisis and I don’t want to see it spiral out of control anymore than it already has. I’m always talking about love but really what’s love got to do with it? RIP Tina Turner…it’s got everything to do with it. If I am loving my neighbor as myself, which is the golden rule after all, then I care what happens to you like I care what happens to me. I don’t want laws that hurt you anymore than I want to be hurt. I want you to have affordable healthcare. I want you to be free to make choices about your own body. I don’t want anyone to interfere with your right to vote and to have your voice heard. I want you to have equal access to schools, jobs, careers, housing, healthcare, and all the opportunities available in our country.
So that’s what I do. That’s what we do. We engage. We pay attention. We love when it would be so much easier to hate. We look for common ground…our common humanity. We look for the strands of the values we believe in within other people. We look for ways to unite our country, our communities, because they are so divided right now. We recognize that everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be part of a community, to belong. Everyone wants to be safe and happy. We take baby steps toward understanding views that differ from our own. We look for commonalities rather than focus on differences. I understand that I am not the only person afraid in our country. I can empathize with others…we can empathize with others. We can be open minded, kind, compassionate, and honest. We can choose to love over and over again until love wins. Because love always wins…it must win. It’s the perfect time to remember that in the end all that matters is how we love people. Buddha said, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” Let’s try the eternal rule for a change.
Kai Raines 