The ultimate goal of the Republican party is to force women to be baby machines… barefoot, in the kitchen, and pregnant. You don’t believe read about the latest Supreme Court case.
We have a link between the Comstock Act of 1844, to abortion, to LGBTQ people.
So now the courts are maneuvering to ban the “abortion pill” by bring back the Comstock Act and possibly any LGBTQ+ book, magazines, and other material related to us.
Did you know that a trans woman was arrested for mailing trans magazines in the past?
The American Library Association wrote…
Now the right-winger are trying to bring back the Comstock Act of 1844 to inflict their bigotry on us and also reproduction rights. They are laying the ground work to bring back the law. The CNN article goes on to write,
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
A little history of the Comstock Act of 1844…Supreme Court abortion case brings 19th century chastity law to the forefront
CNN
By Tierney Sneed
March 29, 2024References from conservative justices to a long-dormant chastity law during the Supreme Court’s arguments in a major abortion pill case this week are bringing new attention to the 19th century statute, which prohibits the mailing of drugs used for abortions among other “obscene, lewd, lascivious” or “indecent” materials.
The Comstock Act, as the law is known, is not central to the current Supreme Court case. However, comments from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito showcase how the law is shaping up to be both a flashpoint in the legal battle over abortion and a potential election-year issue for voters.
There are now calls from within the anti-abortion movement for the Comstock Act to be enforced by the next Republican administration to ban the mailing of abortion medication – a move that would not require any action by Congress nor any blessing from the Supreme Court.
In 1872 Comstock set off for Washington with an anti-obscenity bill, including a ban on contraceptives, that he had drafted himself. On March 3, 1873, Congress passed the new law, later known as the Comstock Act. The statute defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit, making it a federal offense to disseminate birth control through the mail or across state lines.Comstock was a “devout Christian” and according to VOX,
GL: Based on my understanding, the obscenity issues culminated around gay men back then. How did the Post Office target this group, and why?
DJ: Gay publications, gay magazines, and gay penpal clubs were of particular interest to postal inspectors. They believed that any discussion of homosexuality and any depictions of male nudity were encouraging homosexuality in American society. And so in a sense it wasn't that these were necessarily obscene, under shifting definitions of obscenity. But if the images were in any way about homosexuality, the Post Office considered them obscene and a threat to the public.
So now the courts are maneuvering to ban the “abortion pill” by bring back the Comstock Act and possibly any LGBTQ+ book, magazines, and other material related to us.
Did you know that a trans woman was arrested for mailing trans magazines in the past?
The American Library Association wrote…
In the broad sweeping dragnet of the Lavender Scare other LGBTQ+ publications were also caught in their nets.On the Body: What Transgender History Can Teach us About Censorship
By: guest blogger J. M. Ellison
February 28, 2018When we discuss the dangers of censorship, we usually talk about the importance of ideas and their free circulation. We would be wise to consider also the dangers censorship poses to the body. Restricting intellectual freedom is a means for oppressing communities – for justifying incarceration, for preventing education, for destroying networks, and for thwarting resistance.
Take what happened to transgender activist Virginia Prince [I met Miss Prince at Trans Week (formerly know as Fantasia Fair) in the early 2000s]. In late 1959, a friend put Virginia Prince in touch with a pen pal. For Prince, exchanging letters with strangers was nothing new. Seven years previous, Prince and a group of friends started a newsletter titled Transvestia: The Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress. Transvestia was a part of Prince’s work to foster supportive community for people whom she described as “transgenderist.” The correspondence with her new pen pal, however, rapidly grew into something different.
[…]
Transvestia was a part of a growing network of “transvestite” and “homophile” publications, precursors to contemporary transgender and gay communities. Through these publications, trans and queer people were finding support and beginning to develop the analysis that later became the trans and queer freedom struggles. However, Transvestia was a more conservative publication than one might imagine.
For trans and queer people living in the 1960s without Prince’s white, middle class privilege, the impact of censorship was felt in an even more bodily way. Impoverished trans, queer and drag queen people developed loose networks inside large cities. While Prince faced laws against obscenity, these burgeoning communities were daily faced with vice squads. Under the guise of public morality and preventing crime, trans and queer people living on the streets were arrested for wearing the clothes in which they felt comfortable, for loitering, and for survival crimes. In some places, as Black transgender artist and activist Reina Gossett discusses, queer and trans people were not even allowed to touch each other.
Alito wrote the court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, while Thomas is seen as a judicial pioneer in his success in bringing into the legal mainstream views previously seen as fringe. Their interest in the law’s relevance to Tuesday’s case speaks to how the Comstock Act has taken a more prominent role in the efforts to further limit abortion.
“Overturning a constitutional right to privacy that extends to abortion – as reflected in Roe v. Wade – is not their stopping point … they will do anything, even if that is seeking to resuscitate a 19th century statute that was passed before women had the right to vote,” said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO Democracy Forward Foundation.
Others are also worried about the Comstock Act...
The HillBY NATHANIEL WEIXELMarch 27, 2024Abortion-rights supporters are sounding the alarm that conservative Supreme Court justices want to use a long-dormant law to enforce a nationwide abortion ban.Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act during oral arguments Tuesday in a case about the constitutionality of the Biden administration’s efforts to expand access to mifepristone.Alito questioned why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had not contended with the law in its decisions on expanding access to mifepristone through the mail.“This is a prominent provision; it’s not some obscure subsection of a complicated, obscure law. Everybody in this field knew about it,” Alito said.The 151-year-old law banned the mailing of materials that were deemed “obscene, lewd, [or] lascivious,” which included things such as contraception, abortion drugs and pornography.
It is not a bogeyman but a real concern, you will see more attempts to design a case for the courts to invoke the Act. They have received the green light from the justices to go ahead and try it.
“It gives them whatever kind of small measure of legitimacy can be offered by at least one Supreme Court justice, and possibly two, adopting your position. It’s encouraging; it’s like a sign of, OK, this has a chance of actually working, so let’s keep at it,” she added.[…]Legal experts said even if the Biden administration wins at the Supreme Court this term, access to abortion pills could still very much be at risk if Alito and Thomas succeed in soliciting a Comstock-focused challenge in the future.
It is not just abortion but LGBTQ+ magazines are also at risk, I can imagine a Republican legislature passing a law saying LGBTQ+ magazines as pornographic!
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