By SUSAN K. SMITH
Crazy Faith Ministries
The overturn of Roe v Wade, though disappointing, was not unexpected. Because of it, many women who would have sought a legal abortion will now not do so; although some corporations are indicating that they will foot the bill for women to travel to different states where abortion is still legal, there will be women who will not be able to miss a full day’s work or more and will be unable to make the trip.
The ruling in and of itself is remarkable on several fronts, but one of the most troubling is that the nation’s highest court has taken away one of the rights of American women. Some say this is only the beginning of the erasure of rights that were deemed protected by the U.S. Constitution. Justice Clarence Thomas has said the Court needs to now look at getting rid of LGBTQIA rights, including same-sex marriages, and the right of women to obtain contraceptives, as reported by The Texas Tribune.
And Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the Court should now revisit Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson, both rulings that attacked segregation in this country, Salon.com noted. While still using the GOP talking point of criticizing “big government” supported by the Democrats, the Republicans are using the federal state governments to change laws that control what people read and what people can teach, according to Vox.com.
The right to assemble is being attacked and laws put in place to prevent it, according to USA Today, and the right for people to insist upon the separation of church and state was substantially weakened by the Court’s decision to allow a coach to kneel and pray before playing football games, according to NBC News.
Separation of church and state was also weakened as the court ruled that religious schools can in fact receive public funds, NBC News also reported. This is a particularly interesting development because it was the federal government’s ruling that public funds could not be used to fund private religious education after such schools – mostly if not all segregated – were established after Board v. Board of Education ruled that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. White parents pulled their children out of public schools and ignored the law rather than allow their children to attend integrated schools, Politico and Mic.com revealed.
Infuriated, they looked for an issue that would inspire the wrath and political involvement of White evangelicals and learned that abortion was the perfect trigger. The goal has been all along to get the federal government to fund segregation – and that’s what these rulings are doing. And it must be added that part of the conservative agenda is to get rid of public education, according to The New York Times.
So, big government is allowed as long as the principles of conservatives are the only principles being protected, the U.S. Constitution notwithstanding.
If the government is controlling what kind of schools we can have, what religion shall be the religion of the country, if it is telling women they have to carry babies to term, even if they have been raped or are young teens, if it is telling us and controlling what we can read and what schools and universities can teach, and if our right to peacefully assemble is being attacked – again, by the government, then where are we?
In a word, we are on the brink of total collapse as a country. The “democracy” that we touted has been slipping for some time; in these days, the descent to the bottom is nearly complete. We have one chance to save the country by voting but if we do not, the country we have known will be history in a short time. And we will have nobody to blame but ourselves. We have ignored the centrality of white supremacy in this country’s very existence, getting riled up and defensive at even the suggestion that racism is an issue.
And that intentional denial of our cardinal sin and terminal illness is now on the brink of sucking the last gasps of the mythical American out of America’s soul. We are knocking on the door of tyranny, and tyranny is waiting to welcome us.
Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith is the founder and director of Crazy Faith Ministries. She is available for speaking. And she is an award-winning author for her latest book, “With Liberty and Justice for Some: The Bible, the Constitution, and Racism in America,” available through all booksellers. Contact her at revsuekim@sbcgloba.net.