Hell hath no fury…
13th September 2021 · 0 Comments
Just like the so-called “religious right” majority in the Republican Party, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott pimps “God” to justify unconstitutional acts like the most restrictive abortion ban Abbott signed into law last week. “Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life.”
Our currency says, “In God We Trust,” and America’s Bill of Rights extols Christian values – “endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights” – but the First Amendment also says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Abbott’s abortion ban has nothing to do with any God-fearing purpose.
Where is the Republican concern for hungry, homeless and sick children? Where is the GOP’s policy for providing the best education money can buy for all children? Where are the Republicans’ policies for ensuring parents earn a living wage and children are not born into poverty?
Abbott’s slinging God into the midst of the GOP’s greedy agenda is skullduggery at best and heresy at the very worst. God gave man free will, but who gave the Republicans the right to legislate what goes on in a woman’s body? Why is what a woman chooses to do with her own body any of the government’s business?
The Republicans’ flowery, highly principled words are pure B.S. dressed up in the “Big Lie,” they continue to perpetuate.
Abbott’s signing of the most restrictive voting rights law in the country last week is about keeping Black and brown people from voting. That law and others like it have nothing to do with so-called “election integrity.” Abbott says the law will keep people from cheating, but the only cases they’ve found – in two instances – were voters cheating to elect Trump.
The GOP’s support for the January 6 Insurrectionists, repressive voting laws, unbridled police immunity, assault weapons, and now this egregious abortion ban can only mean one thing. The Republicans are waging a Civil War against most Americans who want fair elections, gun control and a woman’s right to choose.
Oh, but what a tangled web Republicans are weaving. In their massive effort to stop the browning of America and keep all the power over legislative affairs and the economy – be it in statehouses, Congress, or the judiciary – they forget a few things.
First of all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And women are pissed, and they are rising.
It may take some time, but the Republicans will get their comeuppance.
They can’t stop the browning of America, either.
White people declined in numbers for the first time on record in the overall U.S. population as according to the 2020 census data. Minority babies are the majority among the nation’s infants, a 2016 Pew Research report found. The finding dramatically illustrated the agency’s (Census Bureau) projections that the U.S. would become a majority-minority nation within three decades.
A 2019 Pew study found that the most common age among whites in the U.S. is 58 – more than double that of racial and ethnic minorities.
The Pew Research Center last month ran a survey on the abortion issue and found that a majority of Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in all (27%) or most (34%) cases. A smaller share of the public (38%) says abortion should be illegal in all (12%) or most cases (26%).
Similar majorities of women (70%) and men (69%) do not want Roe v. Wade overturned.
Republicans differ in their views. Half of Republicans and Republican leaners do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade; nearly as many (48%) would like to see the decision overturned, Pew discovered.
Analysts and pundits say that the abortion ban will make it harder for Black and brown women to get reproductive care, but that perception is wrong. The Pew study indicates that Black and brown women are having babies, and the dwindling number of white births speaks volumes about America’s shifting demographics.
Republicans couldn’t care less about unborn Black and brown babies. Their support for “law and order,” is a euphemism for law enforcement to exact excessive, unwarranted and deadly force at will for minor infractions when committed by Black and brown people without being held accountable. Their opposition to voting rights is code for “if we keep them out of the ballot box,” we’ll retain control, even when we’re a minority.
Republicans are simply about control. The old Confederacy is rising again in the persona of the GOP. Like their forefathers, today’s confederates carry torches and exert mob rule to deny Americans of color their constitutional rights.
Still and yet, the universe has a way of exacting justice no matter what extraordinary measures to the contrary. Vice President Kamala Harris denounced the abortion ban and vowed to fight. And U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland has sued the Texas government.
And now we see, right before our eyes, why Trump stacked the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority gave some legal mumble-jumble excuse why they couldn’t weigh in on the Texas abortion ban. They claimed that because private citizens can execute the law and not the Texas government or legislature, the Court couldn’t block the abortion ban.
Turning their heads and pretending not to see injustice or “burying their heads in the sand,” as Associate Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor wrote, was a bridge too far. Even Republican Chief Justice John Roberts dissented with the Court’s democratic Justices.
Any time you ignore the will of the people you swear to serve and your oath to uphold the Constitution, you’re not a public servant; you’re an opportunist.
A majority of Americans support voting rights, civil rights, and a women’s right to choose.
This article originally published in the September 13, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
