They hate America

It must have been jarring to the true believers when the Supreme Court on Monday passed on the chance to ratify these marriage amendments foisted onto a slumbering American electorate over the last election cycle.

Imagine espousing an ideology — that the complicated business, personal and family arrangement that is marriage can only exist between a man and a woman — so repugnant that it’s illegal.

This is how the system is supposed to work: When a law tramples on Americans’ civil rights, they are entitled to sue for the defense of these rights. Lower courts have already found that marriage amendments violate the 14^th Amendment — the one that guarantees equal protection under the law. By declining to hear arguments, the Supremes deferred to the lower courts.

North Carolina’s marriage amendment is now literally un-American.

Also un-American, as it turns out, is preventing other Americans from exercising their right to vote.

North Carolina’s voting bill, passed last year, clipped days off early voting, ended same-day registration and would have required voters to show ID at the polls — disproportionately affecting poor black people.

But this is the United States of America, where we have an ancient system of checks and balances in place. The legislative branch of government kicks in when things are headed in the wrong, un-American direction.

Civil lawsuits have chipped away much of the NC Voter Information Verification Act,  which it turns out actually did push poor, black people, likely Democrat voters, off the rolls. And the complainants have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.

It’s not that the Supremes don’t want to give these reactionaries what they want — that body has been skewing right since George W. Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005.

It’s that they can’t.

How long before we determine through the courts that underfunding schools is un-American? That placing the tax burden on working people while allowing the top 1 percent to accumulate 40 percent of the country’s wealth is un-American? That giving corporations the same status as human beings is un-American?

And when that happens, how will the true believers wrap their heads around the fact they have been actively trying to destroy the bedrock of the country they think they love?