Anthony Kennedy is resigning. He is the last moderate Republican on the Supreme Court. He’s been the swing vote protecting Roe vs. Wade, though he’s allowed the erosion of access. All the other Republicans on the Court want to overturn it. 45 has vowed to only appoint justices to overturn it. Mitch MCConnell stole Merrick Garland’s supreme Court seat to over turn it. If 45 is allowed to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, the right to choose is gone. Likely the Right to Vote for the poor and People of colour is gone. Republican Gerrymandering will likely make permanent one party rule irreversible or close to it. As it is we generally need 60% of the vote or more to win elections and in some states they’ve arranged nearly permanent control of Congressional, state, and local governments so well it takes a massive blue turn out to win. If Garland’s seat hadn’t been stolen there wouldn’t be a Muslim ban in place. They are already unraveling the public accommodations laws that protect queer folk and people of colour from being denied services.
They owe us a Supreme Court seat. Under the new role they made up in 2016, they claimed that no president is any longer allowed to appoint a Supreme Court justice. This looks like an election year to me. They have no shame, but if we can get the Democrats to exhibit spine just this once instead of letting the Republicans walk all over them again. If we can delay. If we can convince possibly one or better yet two pro choice moderates in the senate, there is a slim but non-zero chance of Saving our Country. It is a huge fucking odds are against us fight. It requires us all to pull the stops out on protests, on contacting our senators (Tell your Democrats to stand firm against them taking another Supreme court seat. Beg your Republicans to do the right thing; to hold to the new standard they imposed; and if they are moderate to save the Right of women to make their own medical decisions. If your senator is Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, it is geometrically more important as they are our best bets.), on registering to vote and turning up for the primaries (if you have any left) and the election in November. WE NEED THE SENATE BACK and WE NEED KENNEDY"S SEAT VACANT OR FILLED WITH MERRICK GARLAND OR HIS EQUIVALENT. To do this will take maximum effort. This is the last break on the Republican goal of turning us into a religious fundamentalist oligarchy. We are steps away from Russia and the Handmaid’s tale. It will likely take a generation or more to recover from the damaged 45 has already done in a year and a half. If they do this… I am terrified because there will be no brakes left.
I know we are all exhausted and discouraged. There have been a series of particularly bad defeats in the last months. We have internment camps on American soil and they are building concentration camps on military bases that don’t have things like enough water in the desert where they are hoping refugee families will outright die. They are placing them on purpose where there can be no over sight from civilian authority and the media, where the law can’t be applied to protect them. Our only hope is a strong judiciary and if the Republicans replace Kennedy with another Gorsuch then it will get so much worse so much faster for all of us.
Please. Help save the Country. We need to fight harder than we ever have before, even though we are all tired and grieving. Maximum effort from here through November. We are nearly out of runway folks and either we fly or we crash.
If you can go in person to see your senators? Do it. If you can go in person to protest? Do it. If like me, you can’t, here are some other options.
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
i accidentally opened the wrong playlist on my phone earlier, which meant I heard the first 30 seconds of The Last Goodbye, and now I’m crying over dwarves again send help
Admirable writers: I write at least 5 rough drafts before posting my final draft.
Me, a fanfic gremlin: My first draft is my final draft.
Woke up to the news about the Supreme Court and I’m gonna. I’ll be better soon but I get like two hours of abject despair and terror before I can begin to think of protesting anything
I invite my closest friends and family to a gender reveal party, but when I open the box with maniacal flourish instead of pink or blue balloons, a television screen is revealed.
I dim the lights remotely as we hear Cate Blanchett say, “The world is changed. I feel it in the water.”
“heterophobia” isn’t real because there’s never been, and never will be, any systematic, societal discrimination and violence against straight people anywhere around the world.
there’s a big fucking difference between what LGBTQ+ people face (again, loss of basic human rights, getting killed just because of being LGBTQ+, being disowned by loved ones, etc) and a straight person getting yelled at over the internet, however aggressively. If you can’t see that then you have a serious problem
Additionally, claiming heterophobia exists trivializes the brutality of homophobia. It makes it sound like the opposition gay people face and the “opposition” straight people face are remotely similar (they aren’t). As if homophobia is limited to being called nasty things, when it takes the form of violence, murder, and systematic oppression
Having separate flags is good bcos it’s good to have a symbol for your particular identity to embrace but it also important to remember the rainbow flag unites us all. All LGBT+ people can use it. I feel like it’s somehow become assumed by a lot of younger lgbt+ people that it’s only fr gay men, which it isn’t and never has been
The rainbow flag when originally created by Gilbert Baker in 1978 actually contained 8 stripes that were assigned values and specific meanings that were meant to show what unites us and what we value as a community,
It took 30 people to hand dye AND hand stitch the first 2 pride flags- 30 people of various identities came together to create the first symbol of pride. Hot pink was removed due to fabric shortages and turquoise was mixed with indigo to have the darker blue we have today.
Having individual flags is great to show your identity but I think we shouldn’t forget that the rainbow flag isn’t reserved for gay men, it was created to show what we all have in common regardless of identity.
konekorambles 