Today the Supreme Court decided to enshrine in law the idea that 1) if you are a rich, business owning, angry, ostensibly christian white man you are sexist special and 2) if you are a woman you’re not a real person. God forbid you be a person of color, non-Christian, and female, war has just been declared on you.
Coupled with the unanimous decision from last week that killed the 35-foot buffer zones around women’s clinics that provide abortion, among other services, I’m ashamed to be an American right now. Free speech, my ass.
President Obama has done a lot of good in his two terms. He’s been great on foreign policy, he helped kill DOMA, he issued an executive order requiring Federal Contractors to treat the LGBTQ community with the same respect they treat the straight community (which is a hilarious amount, just ask Geoff). Obama has done great work, cleaned up the Augean Stables left for him by Bush II, and the nation is in more or less better shape than he found it.
And he has 2 years left.
But there’s the problem with SCOTUS. And the GOP. And the Tea Party. You see, the 5 men that voted for Hobby Lobby and Co. and their religious right as a closely held for-profit corporation to deny women birth control coverage. That? That was crap. That was bad law, that was a decision that was bought and paid for, and that was an embarrassment to American jurisprudence.
In case you, dear reader don’t understand this yet, I’ll lay it out for you. These men? All of them from Scalia on down? They hate you. Every single one of them, Alito, Scalia, Boehner, and every gun-toting-to-Target Tea Partier in America hates women.
They hate women because they fear us. Just like that fool who shot up UCSB and who doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in this space by name, they simultaneously want something, sex with us, and they’re terrified that they’ll get turned down/laughed at. That gives us a modicum of control in a world that is otherwise run by men. You’re fooling yourself if you think that we don’t live in a society where angry men, particularly angry, white, rich, christian men pull all the strings.
So, what do we do about this? Here’s my list.
1) Let’s see how the men on the SCOTUS like being “counseled”. How about at 3:00am with bullhorns when they’re fast asleep? Protest. At their homes, at their country clubs, at the Supreme Court with their 100ft buffer zone – as close as you can get safely.
2) Get a scrip for birth control. Any kind will do. If every woman in America goes to her doctor and demands birth control, even if she doesn’t need it, the medical community will notice. If you can afford to fill it, great. Then give it to a woman in need. Legal? No. Neither was today’s ruling.
3) Raise Hell. Sign petitions. Go to Washington to protest. Join local protests. Do whatever you can to make your voice heard. Sign up voters. Drive people to the polls. Get out the vote and make NOISE. The people that hate us have to be thrown out on election day. We can’t do that without all of us working together.
4) Boycott. Hobby Lobby and every other company that pulls this kind of narrow minded crap needs to be boycotted out of business. And, a boycott only works if they know that you’re refusing to shop there. Email them, call them, write them letters. Is Hobby Lobby trying to open a store in your town? Go to meetings, stop the process, fight the zoning and proposals. Remember that there are people that are shopping there now just to support them for winning. Fight that trend.
5) Make a statement & help the Postal Service. Got any unused birth control pills laying around? I do. Package them up and send them to someone like Scalia, Alito, Boehner, Limbaugh, or any other hateful, sexist, bigoted, white, ostensibly christian white guy. Fill their mailboxes.
6) Be an ally. Not a woman? Not a problem. Not every man is a narrow minded sexist. Stand up for women. At home, in public, in the workplace, everywhere. Be a part of the fight and be on the right side of history.
That’s my list. What are you going to do?
~Kelly
The Books are Taking Over... 