Thursday June 25 and Friday June 26, 2015 were good days, actually great days, for equal rights. On Thursday, The Supreme Court upheld, for the second time, that the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, is constitutional. The decision means that everyone must have equal access to healthcare, not just the well-off and well-paid. While not a perfect system, the ACA has enabled more people to afford insurance. I know because I am one of the people who can now afford health insurance. I also happen to be one of the people who would have lost my government subsidy if the Supreme Court had ruled differently. I live in Florida, one of the States that has refused to either expand Medicaid or set up its own healthcare exchange.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court also upheld the Fair Housing Act which means equal opportunity for housing. Such a simple concept, really. Those responsible for making decisions as to who can rent any rental property cannot discriminate.
Friday was a day of great jubilation for members of the LGBT community. Finally, marriage equality for same sex couples is and must be recognized in every State. Finally, same sex couples will receive the same protections and benefits as husbands and wives receive. This is bittersweet for me. I am happy for all those couples who can now and will in the future be able to get married. The ruling is a little over nine years too late for my partner and me. She died in March 2006.
Along with the Supreme Court issuing decisions to solidify equal rights, many States have begun to either remove or take steps to remove the Confederate Flag from government buildings and grounds as well as license plates. The Confederate Flag has long been a symbol of white supremacy, of defiance to the Federal Government's orders to end the "Whites only" and "Blacks only" segregation throughout the South, in protest against giving Blacks equal rights in the voting booth and in their every day lives. The Confederate Flag was a weapon of fear and those carrying that Flag sought to terrorize Black people.
Ah, so many steps toward equal rights, yet we still have more steps to take. Too often, the very people who are fighting for equality for themselves are fighting against equality for others. Some members of the Black community, long engaged in a struggle to be treated equally, refused to extend those same rights to members of the LGBT community because of religious beliefs. Some White members of the LGBT community are racists who support efforts to suppress rights for the Black community. How ironic that people are so willing to deny others the rights they want for themselves.
This concept is not new and has pervaded our country throughout its history. Americans of English descent believed they were superior to other white ethnic groups. Irish Catholics emigrating to the United States struggled to find jobs and employers often posted signs which said: "Irish or catholic need not apply". Yet the Irish, after achieving some sense of equality, did not as a group support other minorities in their struggles for equal rights. Despite their history of oppression and mistreatment at the hands of the English in their own homeland, some Irish in America objected to fighting in the Civil war to end slavery. It is a sad legacy for all minorities that some of them were and still are all too willing to deny the equality they want to others,
Women could make so many changes in this country, but some women continue to vote against themselves. Some women do not believe that a woman should receive the same pay as men or the same protections under the law. The biggest obstacle to women achieving equality is women and has always been women. This is not a battle between working women and stay at home mothers, but often that is where the lines are drawn. This is not a battle between modern and traditional values, though that becomes a point of anger and animosity. This is just a matter women being treated the same and paid the same and having the same opportunities as men.
We, as a country, have the opportunity to take this moment and make something more of it. We, as a county, have been given the chance to hold in our hands, a small flame of our Statue of Liberty's torch of freedom and equality. Whether we walk forward holding high our flames or extinguish them will determine how much closer we move toward equal rights for everyone. What message will we send to future generations? What will be our legacy? That we had the courage to say this is the moment that we let freedom ring louder and stronger? Or that we refused to stand up for freedom and equality?
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