"Hey, kid, c'mere. Aren't you glad your mother didn't have you yanked with a coathanger?"
In the midst of this past week, with the fundraising drive to mitigate
our financial circumstances, getting my three ebooks ready for the
relaunch, the interview, editing Tatterdemalion, and attending to
thousands of details that make up modern life, I neglected to write
about the one big story that directly affected my adopted state of
Massachusetts. Actually, there were two, the other being Gov Deval
Patrick signing into law a bill raising the minimum wage to $11 ph by
2017, which would be the highest in the nation.
But this is about the
Supreme Court's recent 9-0 decision
to essentially evaporate the 35 foot buffer zone around family planning
centers in Massachusetts that were created seven years ago, giving
evangelical bozos unrestricted access to women seeking family planning
services. What makes this ruling even more depressing is that the
so-called liberals on the court, including the three women that make up a
third of the High Court, sided with the reliably right wing nut jobs in
this issue.
This is the
same judicial body, don't forget, that 20 years ago had supported
buffer zones around abortion clinics. In fact,
Buffer
zones exist in numerous states — the newest, in New Hampshire, takes
effect next month and specifies a 25-foot zone — and have often been
controversial. Others also have made their way to the Supreme Court.
In 1994, the justices upheld a buffer zone for abortion clinics in
Florida. Three years later, they upheld a 15-foot buffer zone around the
entrances of abortion facilities in New York state but struck a 15-foot
floating zone.
This is the same court that was
led by William Rehnquist, don't forget, and had on its bench Scalia,
Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy. But having all nine justices agree
that the Massachusetts buffer zone that had somewhat protected women
from right wing harassment violated the First Amendment (even if they
were split as to how) is a huge disappointment.
It ought to be noted the SCOTUS benefits from a rigidly enforced
300 foot buffer zone
protecting them from the distant din of protesters of both political
stripes, which is perfectly in keeping of right wingers and One
Percenters who have no problem not living under the same rules as the
rest of us.
A
yellow line is painted on the sidewalk and pavement surrounding Planned
Parenthood Clinics at 1055 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Jan. 15, 2014.
It appears as if all nine justices, especially the five right wingers,
need a refresher course as to what free speech really means. Thirteen
years before the buffer zones were erected, an anti abortion lunatic
named John Salvi (who later committed suicide in prison)
shot to death
22 year-old Shannon Lowney, who was merely the receptionist who'd
opened the doors at a Brookline Planned Parenthood and didn't directly
participate in any of the procedures. Salvi and his fellow lunatics had
unanimously declared Lowney "Public Enemy #1" and the girl lost her life
just for opening a door.
I guess free speech guaranteed by
the First Amendment isn't good enough. You have to be able to lay your
hands on these women, scream in their faces what murderers they are and
to strip them of their last vestige of dignity, safety and privacy
(which is what Roe vs Wade was all about) and to even threaten their
lives in their insane quest for the sanctity of life. Of course, they
pushed before the court a sweet-looking grandmotherly type who bemoaned
the fact that she couldn't spread like milk and honey her message of
love.
Because these Protestant Pennywhistles knew better than
to be repped by another maniac like John Salvi, who was so mentally
deranged by the time of his suicide he was convinced liberals were
poisoning his food.
The Rude One
had a pretty good idea a couple of days ago: Since the SCOTUS had
essentially abolished buffer zones for women seeking family planning
counseling and services, let's troll them at church, starting with their
headquarters at their church in nearby Grafton. Let's block their entry
into their church, mock them for their Sky Wizard, shove atheist
literature in their faces. Because, fuck, tit for fucking tat, as the
Rude One would say.
After all, you never see pro-choice folks
blowing up churches and
killing their docents and priests.
Isn't free speech free for everyone and not just one narrow faction so
twisted up in intolerance and hatred that they inevitably turn to murder
and violence?
And because more progressive minded sorts are reasonable, we have not burned their churches or even bloodied their superior-god-loves-us-best-hypocritical-noses. We are reasonable, and thereby, when dealing with supremely unreasonable sorts, we cannot win by reasonable means.
The unreasonable ones keep screaming that it has come to a time of bloody revolution. I am very much afraid they might be correct because their own actions make it so. I really hope if that unfortunate belief is true? That they are suitably shocked to learn that when their push comes to shove there are MORE of us reasonable sorts shoving back.