All Means All
A federal judge has struck down the Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care for children.
The Arkansas law is part of a nationwide Republican drive to gain “evangelical” and other bigoted voters by attacking anything resembling fair play for transgender people.
It would have prohibited doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone younger than 18. It also would have prohibited doctors from referring patients elsewhere for such care.
The judge ruled that the law violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youth and families. He said the law also violated the First Amendment rights of medical providers.
What? Transgender people have rights? Doctors have the right of free speech? What kind of world do we live in!
Maybe, thanks to this judge, a world that is less harshly intolerant than the right-wing utopia envisioned by these Republican legislators – a world in which everyone knows their place, dictated by the sovereign state, and does not venture out of their place, at risk of drawing the ire of petty tyrants in state capitals.
We are approaching the annual observance of Independence Day, when many a would-be despot will stand in front of the red-white-and-blue and shout the merits of freedom without ever understanding the meaning of that word.
It is true that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and to preserve our freedom we must stand against the efforts of all dictators at the local and state and federal levels. No book banning. No attacks on “woke” thinking. (Again, ever hear of the First Amendment?) And so on.
The equation is simple. If you are not free, I am not free. If I am not free, you are not free. Real conservatives know this. Real Christians, too. If you want to be free, you must not try to restrict my freedom, because in “winning,” you will lose – and because you are so centered on yourself, you will lose far more than you ever may know.
It’s freedom for all or freedom for none. And all means all.
