And You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worst

We were on a wave of Blue this election cycle then Trump threw in a wrench and it turn me blue as in a blue funk.

New Acting AG Defended Man’s Right to Call LGBTQ People the ‘Gaystapo’ and ‘The Enemy’ as ‘Religious Beliefs’
The New Civil Rights Movement
By David Badash
November 7, 2018

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker just three years ago defended a newspaper editor who had publicly labeled LGBTQ people "the gaystapo" and "the enemy." Whitaker claimed his client's "sincerely-held religious beliefs" gave him a right to denigrate LGBTQ people – while keeping his job.

In 2014 Bob Eschliman, the editor of a small Iowa newspaper, wrote in his personal blog post an angry rant attacking gay people and the LGBT community as "the enemy," "the deceivers," the "Gaystapo," and "the LGBTQXYZ crowd," as NCRM reported.

His employer, the third third-oldest family-owned newspaper in the country, took a principled stand and fired him – not for his religious beliefs, but for a very ugly attack on LGBTQ people. In an editorial after terminating him the newspaper noted that it had "lost some of that public trust that is so vital to our existence" as a newspaper, as a result of Eschliman's actions, and were working to get it back.
[…]
At the time, Whitaker was a volunteer attorney for the anti-gay Christian right organization Liberty Institute.

Sadly this is just another brick thrown against us and the Department of Justice is now anything but justice, it has become under Trump the “Department of Religious Persecution.” Both the Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights are headed anti-LGBTQ religious bigots and couple that with the anti-LGBTQ religious bigots justices that Trump appointed to the Supreme Court we are in deep doodoo.

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In another article in the New Civil Rights Movement addresses what we are facing in the new Supreme Court…

The Separation of Church and State Under Threat From Current Supreme Court
By Gwendoyln Smith
November 4, 2018

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could allow local governments to display religious iconography on public property.
The case -- a consolidation of American Legion v. American Humanist Association and Maryland-National Capital Park v. American Humanist Association  -- revolves around a memorial to World War I soldiers. The memorial features a 40-foot tall cross, and was erected on public property in Bladenberg, Maryland.

A federal appeals court showed that the "Peace Cross" memorial violates the Constitution's ban regarding "respecting an establishment of religion" under the First Amendment, but it is likely that the new Supreme Court, with a five person conservative majority, will reverse the lower court's ruling.

The issue of religious imagery on public lands had appeared settled in the 1980s, after County of Allegheny v. ACLU. In that ruling, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that the United States Constitution, "prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief or from 'making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.'”
[…]
A Supreme Court reversal could lead to additional religious imagery at city halls, courthouse, schools and other institutions, and open the door to future challenges over school prayer and other changes sought by American evangelicals.

It will also signal future challenges with a religious bent, including potential "religious freedom" cases that can limit LGBTQ and other civil rights.

Then there is the fact that the Senate would not appoint any judges during the Obama administration and now with the Republicans with a greater majority in the Senate they are going to stuff the lower courts also with anti-LGBTQ religious bigots who put the Bible ahead of the Constitution the forecast is not looking good.