I’ll Take The High Road And You Take The Low Road

This time we are not talking about getting to Scotland but rather our freedom. Freedom to be ourselves.

There is a sorting going on and it is not a good sorting but rather one based on prejudices and political lines. Suppose you are either graduating from college, in college, or looking for a new job where would you look? More and more people are either choosing to live in a Red state or a Blue states which is worrysome.

Conservatives move to red states and liberals move to blue as the country grows more polarized

PBS NewsHour

By Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press

July 5, 2023

Once he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to a Boise suburb last year, Tim Kohl could finally express himself.

Kohl did what the couple never dared at their previous house outside Los Angeles — the newly-retired Los Angeles police officer flew a U.S. flag and a Thin Blue Line banner representing law enforcement outside his house.

“We were scared to put it up,” Jennifer Kohl acknowledged. But the Kohls knew they had moved to the right place when neighbors complimented him on the display.

[…]

Leah Dean is on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but she knows how the Kohls feel. In Texas, Dean had been scared to fly an abortion rights banner outside her house. Around the time the Kohls were house-hunting in Idaho, she and her partner found a place in Denver, where their LGBTQ+ pride flag flies above the banner in front of their house that proclaims “Abortion access is a community responsibility.”

[…]

Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history.

And that is the scary part. Are we heading to a new Civil War but this time instead of slavery dividing the country it democracy verses fascism.

Federalism — allowing each state to chart its own course within boundaries set by Congress and the Constitution — is at the core of the U.S. system. It lets the states, in the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, be “laboratories of democracy.”

Now, some wonder whether that’s driving Americans apart.

“Does that work as well in a time when we are so politically divided, or does it just become an accelerant for people who want to re-segregate?” asked Rob Witwer, a former Republican Colorado state lawmaker.

What will happen when a conservative or a liberal is elected president? What happens if the Supreme Court expands abortion bans? What happens if the Supreme Court goes far right and the Congress expands the number of justices? What happens if the courts rule you have to make LGBTQ wedding cakes? These are all hot button issues that are dividing our nation right now.

But something may have changed as the country has become even more polarized. Businesses catering to conservatives fleeing blue states have sprouted, such as Blue Line Moving, which markets to families fleeing from blue states to Florida. In Texas, a “rainbow underground railroad” run by a Dallas realtor helps LGBTQ+ families flee the state’s increased restrictions targeting that population.

The two roads are not meeting but diverging as we become more polarized. Will be be fighting a war the conservative and the liberal states over our freedoms?

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In this new “Great Divide” we are seeing companies looking for neutral ground and the employees just want a job without discrimination.

LGBTQ+ workers want more than just pride flags in June

The Conversation

By Dorian Rhea Debussy

January 9, 2024

Every year, more and more companies seem to recognize Pride Month. But a recent analysis shows that LGBTQ+ workers expect more than this once-a-year acknowledgment from their employers. In fact, some employees actually criticize such behavior as mere pinkwashing.

So, what do LGBTQ+ workers want? In 2023, the jobs website Indeed conducted a survey of LGBTQ+ full-time workers from across the U.S., and the results provide a clear picture of their needs.

As a lesbian transgender woman and a queer studies scholar, I wasn’t surprised by what Indeed found. Even so, non-LGBTQ+ workers – particularly managers – can learn a lot from this survey. It may help them realize what LGBTQ+ workers already know: Employers must do better if they want to retain talent.

Workers are troubled by three big issues, the survey found: the impact of new anti-LGBTQ+ laws, workplace discrimination, and benefits packages that don’t meet their needs.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out with all this “Woke” stuff coming out of the Republican states… will businesses back away from us? Will they avoid states that the Republicans wants to butt in to tell their businesses what they can do?