The “Six Bad Actors” Must Learn That Protesting Grievances Is a First Amendment Right

The six women haters on the Supreme Court are whining, complaining that American citizens, upset about the worst decision by any Supreme Court in history, are exercising their first amendment rights and protesting peacefully in front of their homes. They are pleading with the governors of Maryland and Virginia to illegally remove law-abiding citizens from the areas around their homes.

I have a single response: “Who is protecting us from the Six Bad Actors on the Court or one-half of our legislative branch hell bent on ending democracy in America?”

The “truth lives here,” and if the worst and most unqualified justices in history had obeyed their oaths of office, and followed the intent of the Constitution, instead of supporting the Christian Religious Right, none of what is happening across the United States would have become a reality and a necessity.

Each of the Six Bad Actors was placed on the Court to accomplish an extremist right-wing agenda. I see no reason why the three newcomers, nominated by Trump, and confirmed by Moscow Mitch McConnell and his puppets in the senate, felt they had a right to overturn a decision made by qualified and honest men in 1953, nearly 50 years ago.

[Gail A. Curley, Marshal of the Court, sent letters on Friday to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, noting that state and county law prohibit such protests in front of private homes.

“For weeks on end, large groups of protesters chanting slogans, using bullhorns, and banging drums have picketed Justices’ homes in Maryland,” Curley wrote to Hogan.

“Earlier this week, for example, 75 protesters loudly picketed at one Justice’s home in Maryland for 20-30 minutes in the evening, then proceeded to picket another Justice’s home for 30 minutes, where the crowd grew to 100, and finally returned to the first Justice’s home,” she wrote. “This is exactly the kind of conduct that the Maryland and Montgomery County laws prohibit.”]

My feelings about the situation are clear. The first amendment rights of peaceful citizens take precedence over any city, county, or state ordinance. Someone must read the first amendment to the Six Bad Actors who removed another right from America’s women.

This was about much more than the termination of unwanted pregnancy, or a life-threatening physical condition with long-lasting psychological implications, this was an attack on the basic human right of all humans to make decisions about our own mental and physical health.

Is it right for six individuals to control the lives of over 165 million women in America? What gives these biased and politicized five men and one woman the right to rewrite the Constitution to please their fellow extremists?

Protesting, dissenting, and expressing your opinions and concerns is the greatest display of what it means to be an American guaranteed by the first amendment. If you choose to be complacent, apathetic, and even subservient, you are surrendering to a corrupt and fascist government that refuses to serve the American people, they rule over us. This is unacceptable, and undoubtedly unconstitutional.

Op-ed by James Turnage, Novelist

Sources:

Time: Supreme Court Marshal Demands End to Protests in Front of Justices’ Homes; by Ian Fisher
NPR: The Supreme Court marshal asks state officials to act on protests at justices’ homes; by Becky Sullivan

Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Emma K Alexandra’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inline Image Courtesy of Victoria Pickering’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License