They did it. The MAGA super-majority of the Ohio Legislature over-rode Governor DeWine\u2019s veto of their cowardly bill to ban transgendered care for minors in Ohio and ban transgendered women from Ohio K-12 and collegiate sports. So the Legislature has managed to pass a law that impacts our society \u2013 or at least the miniscule few that are transgendered minors (about 3300 in a decade) and the transgendered girls who play high school sports (7 to 10). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m sure that it takes a law, and a veto, and an over-ride; in our state with 2.5 million children (under 17): \u201cBy God, we\u2019ll protect those millions from the few\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s embarrassing. And it\u2019s disgusting \u2013 like watching a bully on the playground. Even worse, like watching a bully on the playground and not being able to do anything about it. All of these \u201cBully\u201d politicians, making their MAGA political points, at the expense of the defenseless, the most vulnerable among us. The blood of the innocents will be on their MAGA hands, and match their red MAGA hats. We already know that the attempted suicide rate among transgendered youth is high. But MAGA politicians don\u2019t listen, and they don\u2019t care. They KNOW \u2013 beyond a reasonable certainty, what THEIR God created. And so the rest of the state must now kowtow to their religious certainty, because in Ohio where \u201c\u2026With God, all things are possible,\u201d is plastered in almost every school in the state, humanity is more than uncertain. It is missing in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fight isn\u2019t over. Now it will move to the Federal Courts, a venue that will look at the civil rights violations inherent in this legislation. If everyone has equal protection under the law, then the right of a transgendered child to seek medical care should not be denied. If parents have that \u201cRIGHT TO CHOOSE\u201d so often trumpeted by the same MAGA Republicans in front of school boards, then surely parents have the right to choose the medical care for their child. And what could be a more fundamental right then to have the right to choose sexuality. The MAGA God of \u201cAdam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,\u201d surely cannot be rammed down the rest of Ohio\u2019s throats. The First Amendment establishment of religion clause must still reign supreme, even in the Buckeye state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hope the Courts agree. And I thank the Governor, Mike DeWine, for trying to stand up for the few. I won\u2019t even say he\u2019s not trying to get re-elected: he did the right thing, I think for the right reasons, and that\u2019s enough. I wish other politicians in Ohio would learn from him. Sometimes it\u2019s more important to have the courage of conviction, rather than the cowardice of expediency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that is the essence of the \u201cnew\u201d MAGA-Republican Party. To stay in power, politicians must not get out-flanked to the Right. And nothing, ever, is more important than maintaining power. We see the same thing nationally. This week, a solution to the Southern Border crisis is fading. Not because it\u2019s unattainable, but because it\u2019s not politically convenient for their one candidate for President. So that solution goes \u201cunder the bus\u201d, possibly along with support for Ukraine against Russian aggression. Not because it\u2019s right, and not even because it\u2019s controversial. In the end, the vast majority of legislators and Americans would agree. But because it might be a \u201cfeather\u201d in Joe Biden\u2019s cap: then it\u2019s Damn them all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, frankly, the Democrats in the US Senate, and the Democrat in the White House, seem helpless. At least here in Ohio, the few Democrats left un-gerrymandered in the legislature can cry out against the super-majority. But what good is a Democratic majority, when a rump-MAGA caucus of crazies, the whole eight or so of them in the House of Representatives, can call the shots. The MAGA minority are willing to burn every bridge, throw every victim to the wolves, to get what they want, nationally, and here in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John C Calhoun, the pro-slavery Senator from South Carolina in the first half of the 19th<\/sup> century, wrote eloquently about the \u201cTyranny of the Majority\u201d. He represented the \u201cminority\u201d slave-holding view, one that kept the United States entangled until the Civil War. He managed to create, through his eloquence and manipulation, a \u201ctyranny of the minority\u201d. For over a decade, slavery was a \u201cforbidden subject\u201d on the floor of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so we are living in a \u201ctyranny of minority\u201d now, both in the national government, and in Ohio as well. There\u2019s little to do about it, except to rise up in November, and take action at the voting box. The majority will can prevail, but only if the majority actual exercises its freedom \u2013 to vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then we can \u201cthrow the bums out\u201d, and get on with, as Lincoln said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n