He Can Marry, She Can't Vote: Another Day in Deranged America [View all]

[midnight]

Wednesday morning, two surprising rulings from a conservative-leaning Supreme Court sent the legal justifications for America's anti-gay apartheid into a death spiral from which it will not recover.

But there was also Tuesday, when the same Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by striking down Section 4, an action that allows any number of counties across the nation notorious for suppressing minority voting rights to slip the federal leash.
Within hours of the ruling, Texas declared that it would "immediately" enact a vicious voter ID law previously banned by federal law. "With today's decision, the state's voter ID law will take effect immediately," read a statement by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. "Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government."
Condemnation of the VRA decision came just as swiftly. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) reacted with horror and sorrow:
"Although the court did not deny that voter discrimination still exists, it gutted the most powerful tool this nation has ever had to stop discriminatory voting practices from becoming law. Those justices were never beaten or jailed for trying to register to vote. They have no friends who gave their lives for the right to vote. I want to say to them, Come and walk in my shoes. I disagree that because the incidence of voter discrimination is not as 'pervasive, widespread or rampant' as it was in 1965 that the contemporary problems are not a valid basis for scrutiny. In a democracy, one act of voter discrimination should be too much."

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17231-he-can-marry-she-cant-vote-another-day-in-deranged-america