Shock Value

Recently, the Texas State legislature had to vote down an amendment proposed by Texas State Representative Matt Schaefer to an ordinary bill concerning the bureaucratic operations of the Texas Department of State Health Services. His was a shocking amendment: calling for making it illegal for women to abort even non-viable pregnancies.

In February, a new initiative was filed in California by Orange County lawyer Scott McLaughlin. It was named the “Sodomite Suppression Act”, and called for voters to legalize death by shooting of gays and lesbians in California.

Earlier this month, the failed attempt by the Republican-led Congress to override a District of Columbia law that prohibits employers from firing women for using birth control has resulted in a movement by anti-abortion groups to defy the law and have employers fire women anyway.

After we ask, “What’s going on?” the answer is short and sweet: it’s the Tea Party and extreme conservatives taking on the role of stop-gap in our slow march to progress. Their legislative proposals and reactions to legislation are an attempt not to only draw our attention, but also to divert the attention of lawmakers who should have plenty else to do.

Public servants like California’s State Attorney General Kamala Harris are mired in having to gauge and try the constitutionality of McLaughlin’s crazy proposal. Harris asked permission of the courts to reject the McLaughlin’s proposed measure in March, calling it unconstitutional and “utterly reprehensible.” Since the judge has not yet acted, she has been given an extension — until June 25, 2015 — as deadline to prepare the initiative for ballot in November 2016 if the court does not act in time.

These newly proposed “laws” in Texas and California, and the current backlash in DC, appear (it seems) for “shock value” to our political body. It’s part of a national attempt to derail almost every system in government, from legislative to judicial. And that’s the point of the extremists in Congress and state legislatures: to bring government to its knees by gumming up the works all the way to the Supreme Court. This started with initiatives like 2008’s Proposition 8 — which attempted unsuccessfully to outlaw gay marriage in California.

Today, roughly two thirds of the states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage while 13 states ban it. Gay couples from four of those states — Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Michigan — are asking the Supreme Court to rule that the bans violate constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection.

The fight against government’s involvement in gay rights and women’s reproductive freedom isn’t restricted to just those areas. Even our constant antagonist the Department of Defense is not immune from the crazies. It’s a government agency as well — and right now it’s having to justify and re-assure residents of Texas that their military training exercise (called Jade Helm 15) is not an outright military takeover of the state.

And why do certain citizens of Texas think that a US military takeover is afoot? In order to separate — heaven forbid — Texans from their guns. (If you caught Jen Sorensen’s cartoon on Planet Waves last week, you know that even the governor of Texas has taken the supposed, suspicious ‘threat’ to Texas seriously.)

It all boils down to that, doesn’t it? Folks are afraid, and they will react not only in fear of someone taking away their guns, but of women and same sexes freely having sex. It’s in every anti-gay, and anti-abortion initiative since the 1980s: fear of change itself.

We’re still anxious over the breakdown of the way things were; the loosening of the traditional family structure; the fear of people different from you. There is fear that you might not be in the majority — in control, in the right — anymore. And that can make you feel unsafe and willing by any means necessary to bring it all down. But that unsettling feeling is settling in on them — their majority is at its twilight, and all they can do is slow things down.

Regardless of what their bosses might do, women are still going to seek birth control as a natural and crucial part of their health care. Gay men and women are quite visible, open and more accepted in modern society than they were less than 20 years ago. And, maybe soon enough we hope, even the crazies with their guns in Texas (and elsewhere) will ultimately stand down.

Actress Kathleen Turner, board member of People for the American Way, was recently interviewed by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. Turner ascribed the upswing in crazy lawmaking as related to “The fact that women have gotten so successful,” noting that, “We’re 57 percent of the degrees in higher education; 40 percent of working women are the primary breadwinner in their families. I think men are scared, basically.”

“You think this is essentially classic backlash politics,” Hayes responded, suggesting to Turner that, “There’s a relationship between intensified efforts to restrict women’s reproductive choice at a time in which they’re achieving [more] economic parity.”

The same can be said for all the various sectors of our culture wars. It takes time to shake a community out of its perceived fear of our differences and of change itself. Imagine what it takes for a nation. More news with shock value will continue to awaken us. But change has to happen, slowly and steadily in order for it to take hold. We’re not there yet. But the more they try to stop us, the more we should remember we’re winning. Stay sharp and keep your rubber boots on to repel the shock.