When the courts do hospitals' dirty work - Libby Watson

 

When the courts do hospitals' dirty work

Libby Watson

The story that drove me most insane in the last week was a USA Today piece about Hertz’s practice of filing police reports for cars that are not stolen, more information about which emerged in the proceedings of an ongoing lawsuit this week. Sometimes the cars are simply lost, or ‘missing’ in the system because someone extended a reservation by phone. This practice of filing police reports—which it does an average of 3,365 times per year, or about nine a day—has led to the 230 plaintiffs currently seeking justice in the lawsuit spending 2,742 collective days in jail. People interviewed by the paper have lost jobs or homes because of these false charges. This is not a healthcare story, but it does highlight an inescapable fact of American life that is horribly relevant to healthcare: The profitable partnership of massive corporations and the criminal justice system, holding hands to stamp on the faces of the poor.  

The story reminded me immediately of two others. First, this New York Times story from 2018, which revealed how huge corporations like Walmart “employ aggressive legal tactics and take advantage of loosely written state laws” to demand money from people they accused of shoplifting, even if those accusations were false. Those retailers often “do not have to return the money they collect if the cases are ultimately dismissed or the people are cleared.” In one instance, a woman accused of stealing $25 worth of CDs alleged that “two police officers ‘threw’ her on a couch, handcuffed her and took her to jail.” The charges were later dropped, but not until after Walmart’s lawyers demanded money from her and threatened her with a lawsuit. 

 Second, in 2019, ProPublica wrote about the practice of jailing people who fail to appear in court for medical debt cases, which became especially profitable for one collection attorney in Kansas. The story provided harrowing examples, like the cancer patient who was “hauled away from home in her pajamas in front of her three children; too weak to climb the stairs to the women’s area of the jail, she spent the night in a men’s mental health unit where an inmate smeared feces on the wall.” Not long before that piece came out, a story from Kaiser Health News detailed the University of Virginia’s practice of taking patients to court for unpaid medical bills, for as little as $13.91. Together, these pieces tell a powerful tale about how hospitals can use the justice system to threaten and extract payment from patients—all possible because we make patients ultimately responsible for the individual costs of their healthcare. The charges the patients owe money for are, of course, completely arbitrary and wildly inflated, but they don’t have to justify the fees to sue the patient over them. 

These are stories from three different sectors of the American economy—car rentals, retail, and healthcare—but they have an important aspect in common. In all of these stories, huge, profitable institutions are able to use the full might of the state, with all the consequences this has for their victims’ lives, to obtain mostly meaningless amounts of money—to them, that is. To the people whose lives they’re ruining, these sums can be life-changing, or life-ruining. The cops and the courts act on behalf of the corporation, no matter how egregiously wrong or aggressive they might be, to insure them against any little loss of profit. 

I write about healthcare, not criminal justice or American history, so I don’t feel like I can adequately diagnose or explain how the American justice system got so eager to help corporations like this. I can’t explain why a judge in Virginia might have told a woman in her 70s, who arrived at hospital “bleeding and in pain” from uterine cancer, that her payment agreement with the hospital was not too vague to be enforced, because she always had “the ability to decline the surgery” that led to her $23,849 bill. I guess she could have gathered up her bloody clothes and tottered along to the next hospital, which would have had exactly the same clause “you owe us whatever we say you do” in its contract and might have charged her twice as much anyway (neither could have told her the cost beforehand, of course). I can’t explain how the debt collector in Coffeyville lives with himself. I can’t explain why Walmart goes to such lengths to pursue people for such stupidly small amounts of money, which must itself cost them a lot in legal fees.

I can’t explain any of it, but I do know that all over this country, there are frightening and arbitrary schemes put in place by corporations to ensnare regular people, extract their little bits of money, and toss them aside, into jail or financial ruin, or both. The criminal justice system opens its arms and welcomes the worst fucking snakes in America and happily lets them use it, with its gun-toting cops itching to humiliate people and its horrific, dangerous jails, to chop up the meager finances of the poor and turn them into snake food.

And I know that there are many, many hospitals that are no better in this way than Hertz or Walmart.

Thousands and thousands of lawsuits are filed by hospitals against their patients every year; some kept doing it during the pandemic, including New York’s Northwell Health. According to Axios, the Mayo Clinic Saint Mary’s Campus sought $4 million in 904 lawsuits against patients between January 2018 and July 2020; the Mayo Clinic’s total revenue just in 2019 was $13.82 billion. Those lawsuits over two and a half years represent 0.02 percent of the organization’s revenue in one of those years. 0.02 percent of a normal person’s yearly income is like what you might spend on lunch. Could they perhaps have foregone their lunch to not ruin 904 people’s lives? 

Cops and judges arrested and jailed people who had not stolen a car to help out Hertz. They humiliated people who had not stolen stuff to help out Walmart. They jailed cancer patients for being unable to afford the made-up price a hospital charged them to stay alive, to help out the hospital. (I didn’t even mention the judges who sign off on landlords’ arrest warrants for unpaid rent.) The reverse of this—for ordinary people to use the legal system to obtain justice from large corporations—is absurdly difficult, thanks to neat things like arbitration clauses and ‘needing money to get a lawyer.’

The truth of American inequality is not just that some people have a lot of money and a lot more have very little, in some sad natural accident. The rich are rich because other people are poor. The wealthy elite extracts their riches from the poor through schemes like this, or underpaying workers, or pure wage theft. It’s a transfer, and the logic of capitalism and ever-increasing profits dictates that they must always use every possible avenue to expand this transfer. And sitting right there is the criminal justice system, already primed to oppress the powerless and vulnerable, with the legal authority to take people’s money. It’s a loaded gun, literally.

Maybe you expect this of Walmart. But hospitals? If a hospital is just as willing to engage in this behavior as Big Evil Corp., and the legal system is willing to enforce the complete fiction that hospital prices are real, we don’t really have a healthcare system—and we certainly don’t have justice, let alone a right to healthcare. We just have another type of greedy fuckers making money however they can, who just happen to sell healthcare instead of cars.

The Right to Cruz

"For too long, members of Congress have abused their power and ignored the will of the American people. Term limits on members of Congress offer a solution to the brokenness we see in Washington, D.C. It is long past time for Congress to hold itself accountable. I urge my colleagues to submit this constitutional amendment to the states for speedy ratification."

That was Senator Ted Cruz talking to ABC News last January, talking about the Constitutional amendment that he introduced in the first week of the year. It was the second time that he had introduced an amendment with the goal of establishing term limits for Congress, the first being two years earlier in January of 2017. A FOXwing friend of mine posted the article on his Facebook page yesterday. Knowing him, it's easy to presume that he thought it was something new. I have friends on both sides of the aisle who think that this would be a good thing (in fact, Beto O'Rourke proposed the same idea back when he was running against Cruz in 2018,) and I commented with my usual response:

It's tempting to go off on a tangent here. J____, in recent posts,  has made it obvious that he strongly disapproves of Socialism, so it would be easy to rib him a little for suggesting that anyone should start drawing on Social Security. But he's also made it pretty obvious that he doesn't know what Socialism is, much less Democratic Socialism, so I think the point would be lost on him. But anyway... 

There are lots of articles out there about why term limits would be a bad idea, and why they are not in the Constitution, but they're mostly just variations on the reason that James Madison gave in Federalist Paper #53: 

"[A] few of the members of Congress will possess superior talents; will by frequent re-elections, become members of long standing; will be thoroughly masters of the public business, and perhaps not unwilling to avail themselves of those advantages. The greater the proportion of new members of Congress, and the less the information of the bulk of the members, the more apt they be to fall into the snares that may be laid before them"

In other words, instead of offering "a solution to the brokenness," it's more likely to create brokenness, because a newer, less experienced Congress will susceptable to bribery and other forms of influence,effectively handing the control of government to lobbyists and special interests. There is also the tendency for new Congressmen to try to codify the personal prejudices of both themselves and their constituants without regard to the civil and human rights of the people they are supposed to be representing, or for their health, safety and welfare. Samantha Bee made that abundantly clear on a segment of her show Full Frontal back in 2016. 

But for me, the biggest problem is that it is simply anti-democratic.

Ted Cruz was the one who proposed this amendment. Now, I don't like Ted Cruz. He's an economically ignorant dominionist who tends toward Fascism. He says stupid things. He does stupid things, and even the people on his side don't like him.  But he represents a different part of the country from where I live. I can't vote for him or against him. A term limit would be a sure fire way to get rid of him.

But the majority of voters of his district chose him, whether I like it or not. And that is their right. And in my opinion, the right to vote -- and the right to vote for the candidate of your choice -- should be sacrosanct, and not be taken away or diminished. As Hillary Clinton said recently, "One of our most precious rights as Americans is the right to determine who our leaders are." We already have voter purges, precinct closures, gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and court decisions like Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo that give wealthy people more undue influence on government-- policies that already take away the right to vote or diminish the effectiveness of the individual's vote. We don't need another policy that takes away the voice of the people. 

18 U.S. Code § 2385 (Advocating overthrow of Government)

18 U.S. Code § 2385 (Advocating overthrow of Government)
____
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
____

Inalienable Rights

The Washington state supreme court ruled unanimously last week that a florist could not refuse to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding on religious grounds. While this is a state court decision and not binding on other states, the case has nonetheless been closely watched by civil rights and LGBT rights advocates because of possible national implications.

The florist's attorney has said they will now appeal to the United States Supreme Court. There is no guarantee, however, that the high court justices will take the case.

The state supreme court asserted some powerful arguments in its ruling. Per the court, this case "is no more about access to flowers than civil rights cases in the 1960s were about access to sandwiches,"

The court also said "public accommodations laws do not simply guarantee access to goods or services. Instead, they serve a broader societal purpose: eradicating barriers to the equal treatment of all citizens."

While discrimination cases are not new, this decision is important because it equates same-sex couples' rights with other persecuted individuals like interracial couples in the era of segregation.

The state's attorney general later said this month's case was a landmark because it established "sexual orientation is a protected class — just like race, just like religion."

If you'd like to read the Washington supreme court decision, it's available online free here in its entirety on the state's webpage.

This court ruling comes at an important time because of two related issues in the news.

First is the deceptively titled "First Amendment Defense Act" (FADA), a pending bill in Congress that Donald Trump has promised to sign. As I've written here before, FADA would allow anyone to discriminate against LGBT persons and others by simply claiming a religious basis.

Don't want gays in your restaurant or your medical office? With FADA passed, all you have to say is that it offends your religious beliefs.

Second is the potential seating of Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump recently to fill the current Supreme Court vacancy. Gorsuch has ruled in favor of discriminatory "religious exemption" cases in the past and could do so again if this florist case, or a similar one, came before the high court.

Here is where the rubber meets the road with Trump. It doesn't matter that he says he's pro-LGBT and once waved a rainbow flag upside down for two seconds. What matters is, as President, he has acted and will act to ensure that LGBT Americans are an inferior class who can be discriminated against at will on "religious" grounds for decades to come.

It's not what he says that makes him dangerous. It's what he's done and plans to do. Any LGBT person who continues to support him is only fooling him or herself about the dangers we all face.

echoing back to the days more than a half century earlier when businesses refused to serve African-Americans and other minorities.

-Manhandler

Policy Priorities of Foxworld

In Foxworld, xenophobia and ethnocentrism are

always going to outrank the 14th Amendment.

The Mixed Up Congress Of Foxworld

In Foxworld, our Republican led Congress is trying to make everyone think liberally.

PBS NewHour Q&A: The Gun Quesion

President Obama stuck around after last night's #POTUSonNewsHour to answer more questions. Here's his answer to a question about Second Amendment rights and gun control. Watch the full town hall special here,

The Immigrants of Foxworld

In Foxworld, there's a line for immigration.

The Voters of Foxworld

In Foxworld... No, no, no, nope, nope, nope.
This is too blindingly stupid, even for Foxworld.

The Immigrants of Foxworld

In Foxworld, Coming to America legally is just a matter of going through the process, and ridding the country of those who fail or refuse to go through the process is just a matter of law enforcement.

Reading List 12-04-15

Our Ayn Randian dystopia: Here’s the secret five-step plan to privatize everything

Post-Ayn-Rand, in the growing era of neoliberalism, with Ronald Reagan blurting “government is the problem” and Margaret Thatcher proclaiming “There is no such thing as society,” once-respected institutions like public education and public transportation were demonized as “socialist” and “Soviet-style.” The message has been repeated so often by the business-backed media that the general public began to believe it.  - Paul Buchheit

The GOP Ignores the Bigger Terror Threat—From the Right

The threat posed by ISIS is real and must be forcefully addressed. But if these Republicans truly want to keep us safe, why don’t they ever raise the issue of right-wing terrorists? After all, as The New York Times reported just a few months ago, “Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims.”
The reality, of course, is that talking about scary Muslims plays great with the GOP base. - Dean Obeidallah

A reassessment of socialism: many questions

 I was just at a conference that looked at the importance of Piketty’s most recent book for the future of capitalism.  In talking about it, several participants mentioned the VoC literature. The acronym refers to the literature dealing with the “varieties of capitalism”. That made me think of the fact that for the first time in history the entire globe is capitalist. In effect, for the first time in history, capitalism, defined as a system of  the private ownership of the means of production, free wage labor, and rational pursuit of profit, does not have to share the globe with the “varieties of feudalism” or “varieties of socialism”. It has won.  -Branko Milanovic  

The Lesson Of Trump Is You Should Argue With Your Own Team

When know-nothing movements put know-nothing politicians into power, this power gets squandered on garbage like debt ceiling standoffs, auditing the fed, and phony attempts to repeal Obamacare that lack an actual idea of what they’d replace it with. Republicans with less power but a more coherent and intelligent idea of what to do with it would probably be better off. - Adam Ozimek

How Republican ‘Thought Police’ Enforce Climate-Science Denial

Brooks presents the situation as a “vast majority” of GOP politicians that understand climate science cowed into submission by an angry minority. Perhaps the vast majority of Republican politicians who confide their private beliefs to Brooks feel this way, but this is probably not a representative cross section. It is clear that a large proportion of party elites proclaim themselves to be climate-science skeptics for reasons purely of their own volition. Nor is this sentiment confined to talk-radio shouters. Esteemed chin-strokers and collectors of awards, like George F. Will and Charles Krauthammer, broadcast their disdain for the findings of the climate-science field.
The rise of Trump, and his increasingly cartoonish lies, has framed the Republican Party as split between the Establishment and the kooks. But on the climate issue, at least, the kooks are the Establishment. The “sophisticated” arguments about climate change that appear in prestigious conservative organs contain childish ignorance. - Jonathan Chait

The Law and the Refugee Crisis

"The supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution, was pointed out by authors of The Federalist in 1787, and has since been given continuous recognition by this Court.  When the national government by treaty or statute has established rules and [312 U.S. 52, 63]   regulations touching the rights, privileges, obligations or burdens of aliens as such, the treaty or statute is the supreme law of the land. No state can add to or take from the force and effect of such treaty or statute, for Article VI of the Constitution provides that 'This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.' The Federal Government, representing as it does the collective interests of the forty-eight states, is entrusted with full and exclusive responsibility for the conduct of affairs with foreign sovereignties. 'For local interests the several states of the Union exist, but for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nations, we are but one people, one nation, one power.'  Our system of government is such that the interest of the cities, counties and states, no less than the interest of the people of the whole nation, imperatively requires that federal power in the field affecting foreign relations be left entirely free from local interference."   HINES v. DAVIDOWITZ, (1941)

Refugee Act of 1980:

The federal power to determine immigration policy is well settled. Immigration policy can affect trade, investment, tourism, and diplomatic relations for the entire Nation, as well as the perceptions and expectations of aliens in this country who seek the full protection of its laws.  Perceived mistreatment of aliens in the United States may lead to harmful reciprocal treatment of American citizens abroad.  It is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States. [See The Federalist No. 3, p. 39 (C. Rossiter ed. 2003) (J. Jay) (observing that federal power would be necessary in part because "bordering States . . . under the impulse of sudden irritation, and a quick sense of apparent interest or injury" might take action that would undermine foreign relations.]  ARIZONA, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES.

Fox News Host Says Kim Davis' Attorney Is "Stunningly Obtuse"

The Guns of Foxworld

In Foxworld, some people blame the guns themselves whenever there is a shooting death.
 

In Foxworld, there are people who believe that guns are independent operators.

 

In Foxworld, there are politicians who actually want to ban guns.

Code Words

When did "religious freedom" become code for legalized discrimination? Why is it an employers "right" to dictate the beliefs of their employee? Why should one's boss dictate when: they do or do not have a child, who they marry, or what ethnicity their spouse is. This is America, and that does not sound like freedom... This bill is not about conservatism, it is theocracy.
--From the Facebook page of Freedom Oklahoma

The Constitution of Foxworld

In Foxworld, anytime someone in the Government does something you don't like or you disagree with, it's unconstitutional.

The Dire Need For Legislation In Foxworld

 

In Foxworld, it is important that the government pass laws to protect certain people from situations that don't exist in real life.

My Cousin Got Trapped In The Gap

I was sick recently.  It started with losing my dinner rght before work one Friday night, and over the next two nights, I had body aches and fatigue, and a headache that wouldn't go away.  Finally, on Monday morning, I felt so bad that I had Gaby take me to the emergency room.  A couple of days ago, I got the bill:  $8,040.25, of which my insurance covers all but $991 of, and that will probably be covered in its entirety by my HSA.  I am so glad that we both have health insurance.  Without it, I figure I'd be paying this bill off for the next forty months.
      Monday afternoon, I had a chance to visit briefly with a cousin of mine, Steve, and the stream of the conversation led to him talking about his own health care situation.   He works for a large company and makes a decent living, but he works contracted labor, so his employer doesn't provide health insurance.   He's looked into buying it himself, but since he's a diabetic, the cheapest policies he can find would cost over $20,000 per year.   He makes too little money to qualify for the subsdies from the ACA, and since our Governor has decided to put politics above the well being of the people of the state, he makes too much money to qualify for Medicaid.  So, he, a diabetic, has to do without, and hope that nothing serious happens to him in the five years till he can qualify for Medicare.
    Thing is, the Affordable Care Act was written in such a way that Steve should never have had to worry about this.  The plan was that people who make 133% to 400% of the federal poverty level would be provided help in paying for their health insurance, while those making under 133% would be covered under Medicaid, which is a state sponsored program.  The states would not be out any money for the expanded service because the Federal Government would provide 100% of the funding for the first three years, and then scaled down to 90% by 2022.
    But in 2012, the Supreme Court decided that states did not have to expand their Medicaid program if they didn't want to.  As of October 2014, 23 states, including Oklahoma,  have not done so.  This has created a coverage gap that is not provided for in the ACA,  and in most of those states, the maximum income to be eligible for Medicaid is set so low that anyone with any kind of job could not qualify.  Furthermore, childless adults in all but one of those states are not eligible for Medicaid at all.  In Oklahoma, that leaves 104,000 people without any kind of health coverage, 88% of which are childless adults.  Steve is one of them.
    I had started to write on this subject almost a year ago when a friend of mine posted a meme on Facebook about the Georgia legislature making a rather dubious vote to go against Federal law.  Not the first time for that state, of course, but it interested me because my brother had just moved to Georgia, and he, at one time, was telling the family that he would be dependent on the ACA to enable him to buy insurance.
    Then, shortly thereafter, the story came out that rural hospitals in Georgia were closing because, by not expanding Medicaid coverage, the state had also rejected 14.5 billion in Federal funds,  while denying health care coverage to 646,557 people.  This is not a problem unique to Georgia, but the solution to the problem proposed by the Governor was appalling.
    Back in 1986, Ronald Reagan signed into law the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which said that Emergency Rooms could no longer reject patients based on their ability to pay for services.  Governor Nathan Deal decided that the way to fix the problems of closing rural hospitals in his state is to repeal the 1986 law.  His critics, naturally, describe his position as If we kill off all the poor people, we won't have to pay for taking care of them.
    (Sidenote here:  Back during the 2012 Presidential Election campaigns, Mitt Romney said the ACA was unnecessary because the uninsured could just go to emergency rooms.  Seems Governor Romney and Governor Deal were at cross purposes.)
    Not that people wouldn't be dying in his state anyway as a result of his failure to expand Medicaid.  The peer-reviewed medical journal Health Affairs estimated that between 501 and 1176 people per year in Georgia alone could die a "needless death" simply because of what is essentially partisan politics.
     Here in Oklahoma, of course, we've got exactly the same thing.  Governor Mary Fallin decided not to expand Medicaid coverage, turning away billions in Federal funding, saying it was "unaffordable."  Personally, I don't understand her math, or why she thinks the state would be better off with more people in the state having no access to health care or dying needless deaths.  Seems to me, she's taken the more expensive route.
    When you stand against something, you should also be aware of what you're standing for. 
    Last Thursday, the front page of the Daily Oklahoman had the headline "Shortfall's Dire Consequences,"  in which educational and health care officials explained to state Government officials how budget cuts would affect the state.  Republicans have a super majority in our State Legislature, and Republicans in general are committed to the idea that tax cuts generate growth, and that cuts in spending will cover deficits.  These ideas have never worked before, and they have no potential for working in the future, and furthermore, we have to look no further than our next door neighbor, Kansas, to see just how badly these ideas work when put into practice unfettered.  Yet that will continue to be the policy here for the foreseeable future.  Maybe all the poor people here will die off, too, and then we won't have to worry about it anymore.

An Open Letter to Michelle Dugger

An Open Letter to Michelle Duggar As She Celebrates Her Victory In Repealing Anti LGBT Discrimination Laws
By Carissa House-Dunphy on December 13, 2014

Dear Mrs. Duggar,
Over the years, I have often defended you to friends and in online comments that criticize the life you have chosen for yourself. I’ve seen and heard comments that describe your family as abusive since your older children become caretakers of the younger while many feel that they should be enjoying their youth, and that you blatantly exploit your children by allowing cameras to record their every awkward and private moment for your own profit.

I have defended you despite how differently your life is structured from my own. I never chose to have children, and I’ve taken a lot of criticism and have been the target of a lot of confused reactions to that choice. Despite my own feelings about whether or not to become a mother, I have always defended your right to have as many children as you wanted and to earn money to raise those children in any way that you saw fit. I would never support any law that discriminated against you for your religious beliefs or your decision to birth nineteen children. I would never stand for our government limiting your right to express those beliefs, or allow a landlord to discriminate against you by refusing to rent you a home to house your family of twenty-one, or an employer to discriminate against you by refusing to allow you 19 separate maternity leaves. You see, Mrs. Duggar, I get that your being granted those rights doesn’t affect or harm me in any way. None of my beliefs about motherhood, marriage, or religion are challenged by your own, nor are my rights limited because you’re allowed the right to live a different lifestyle than mine.

You and I were both raised in a Christian church. The core beliefs, similarly, were based on the words of Jesus. Somehow, though, I missed those passages printed in the Bible in red where Jesus said that we must discriminate against others in order to follow His teachings. Instead, I was taught Biblical passages such as “Judge not lest ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1), “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), and “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

While you celebrate your successful campaign to repeal anti-LGBT legislation in your town that would prevent housing and employment discrimination based on a tenant’s or employee’s sexual identity, I stand here, confused. While the country screams “discrimination!” and “unconstitutional!” over a decision to kick Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson out of the NFL because one chose to abuse his wife and the other his child, there is still such a large faction of fundamentalist Christians who believe that they should be allowed to discriminate in hiring an LGBT person. While landlords rent every day to people who commit all sorts of sins, as we all do according to the Bible (“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23), the messages you received in church somehow told you that your sins are lighter and less offensive to Christianity than the sins of others. I’m not sure, Mrs. Duggar, that you and I really were both raised in a Christian church with a Christian message.

You see, I understand that making life more difficult for LGBT people will not reduce the numbers of people who identify as other than heterosexual, nor should that even be a goal. LGBT persons have lived and struggled to be accepted despite decades, centuries even, of LGBT living as targets of violence and discrimination.
I also know that it is not an increase in protections for LGBT people, or same-sex marriage rights, or work in eliminating the discrimination levied against transgender people, that are turning people away from the Christian church. It’s hypocrisy. Hypocrisy such as yours, Mrs. Duggar, in thinking that any sin you commit should be weighed less heavily or considered less of a sin than anyone else’s. Hypocrisy such as yours, also, in saying “I’m a Christian” despite your lack of kindness toward and acceptance of other people.

Yet, I’ll continue to defend your choices. I’ll continue to do so because I DID hear those messages in church that told me that I was not better than anyone else in the eyes of God. I heard those messages that told me not to judge others. I heard those messages that told me that God sees my sins as no different than anyone else’s.

I heard the words of Jesus that told me to love others.
Sincerely,
Carissa

Freedom, And Those Who Oppose It

Monday afternoon, I went to the local craft store to buy some paint brushes for a model I'm working on.  A young lady I know works in that department, and she asked me how I was doing.  I said, "Fantastic.  My marriage is recognised in the state where I live, my husband is no longer an illegal alien, we both have jobs and health insurance--I feel freer than I've felt in my whole life."
    "Feels good, doesn't it," she said.
    "Absolutely."

Monday morning, the Supreme Court announced that they had declined to hear the appeal from the 10th Circuit Court, effectively making same-sex marriage legal in Oklahoma and four other states.  Among my friends there was much rejoicing.  My friend Michael posted, "Gay marriage is now legal in Oklahoma. Words cannot express my happiness for this moment and my thanks goes out to my friends in Tulsa who pushed hard for this moment. We weren't state #50 for this to happen!!!"
    Not everyone shared in that jubilation, however.  Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin issued her official response later that day.

“The people of Oklahoma have the right to determine how marriage is defined. In 2004, Oklahomans exercised that right, voting by a margin of 3-1 to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“The will of the people has now been overridden by unelected federal justices, accountable to no one. That is both undemocratic and a violation of states’ rights. Rather than allowing states to make their own policies that reflect the values and views of their residents, federal judges have inserted themselves into a state issue to pursue their own agendas.

“Today’s decision has been cast by the media as a victory for gay rights. What has been ignored, however, is the right of Oklahomans – and Americans in every state – to write their own laws and govern themselves as they see fit. Those rights have once again been trampled by an arrogant, out-of -control federal government that wants to substitute Oklahoma values with Washington, D.C. values.”

 Now, I can't say that I'm actually sure that Governor Fallin believes her statement.  Certainly from a legal and historical perspective it makes no sense.  Notice that she's still talking about a vote that took place ten years ago. Since then, attitudes have shifted, and demographics have changed--maybe not enough to move Oklahoma into the pro-civil rights column, but today's 27-year-olds were not old enough to vote back then.  But then, she also never explains why we were voting on basic civil and human rights to begin with, except for that tired old canard about the "definition of marriage." 
It's funny to me that she tries to make the point that the Supreme Court Justices are "unelected."  Of course they are unelected.  If they had been elected,  they would be basing their decisions on the will of likely voters instead of the one thing they are supposed to be accountable to: the US Constitution.  Furthermore, "all U.S. state constitutions are subject to federal judicial review; any provision can be nullified if it conflicts with the US Constitution."*  In fact, Governor Fallin herself swore to uphold the Constitution in her Oath of Office.  And whether she likes it or not, the 14th Amendment is a part of the US Constitution, and has been for 39 years longer than Oklahoma has been a state.
    But in one way, her statement makes a lot of sense:  she's up for re-election, and she's calculating that saying something like this in a state as conservative as Oklahoma will get her a lot of votes.  She's probably right.

    In Washington DC, Ted Cruz also had something to say.

     "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

Okay, that was actually someone else, but the spirit was just the same. What he actually said was:

“...This is judicial activism at its worst. The Constitution entrusts state legislatures, elected by the People, to define marriage consistent with the values and mores of their citizens. Unelected judges should not be imposing their policy preferences to subvert the considered judgments of democratically elected legislatures..."

This is, of course, a ridiculous statement, as I'm sure he knows.  Most Federal and state courts in the US have the power of judicial revue, and have had since 1803.  It's their job.  It's what they do.

“It is beyond dispute that when the 14th Amendment was adopted 146 years ago, as a necessary post-Civil War era reform, it was not imagined to also mandate same-sex marriage, but that is what the Supreme Court is implying today. The Court is making the preposterous assumption that the People of the United States somehow silently redefined marriage in 1868 when they ratified the 14th Amendment..."

The Supreme Court is not implying that, or anything else.  They, and all the courts that the case has gone through, are stating explicitly that, because of the 14th Amendment, you cannot create one set of laws for one kind of people and another set of laws for another kind of people if all of those people are US citizens, and that you can't create laws that rob a certain subset of people of their basic civil and human rights based simply on who they are.  And this "definition of marriage" crap doesn't change that.

“...Marriage is a question for the States. That is why I have introduced legislation, S. 2024, to protect the authority of state legislatures to define marriage. And that is why, when Congress returns to session, I will be introducing a constitutional amendment to prevent the federal government or the courts from attacking or striking down state marriage laws."

The US Constitution is a document that protects the liberties of the individual, and here he is wanting to add an amendment that will take away liberties from some based on who they are.  And I have friends who agree with him.  When I posted an article about this on Facebook, one friend responded, "Good I hope does take action. I support him 100%. He actually has some backbone!"  I pointed out that that could also be said of Orval Faubus and George Wallace.
But I don't believe that it's "backbone" that he has; what he has is a lot of cynicism.  He knows that in the unlikely event that his bill makes it out of committee, it would never be approved by the American public.  He's taking advantage of the ignorance and indignation of his constituents, banking on their belief that these things will change.  But the evolution of America has always been toward liberty and freedom, sometimes in halting jerky steps, frequently with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but always managing to move forward somehow. 
    "Liberty and justice for all" is not just a motto; it's our destiny.