What's been going on near our DC office, over the last week, in the Virginia Legislature, has been both an embarrassment and an abomination - especially when we consider that the date on the calendar says 2012, and not 1812.
As we've pointedly noted in the news over the last couple months, several states, pushed by extremists on the far right, have been attempting to pass laws that heavily restrict women's rights. Some of these proposed laws have been in places like Oklahoma and Texas, where sadly such misogyny - even in the modern age - isn't all that surprising.
That some of these attempts have also been happening in places like Iowa - one of the first states to allow gay marriage - and Virginia, has awakened a smaller sub-section of those on the political left who thought these issues had already been decided long ago.
As the extremists on the right have made ever more clear, their full intent truly appears to be to drag the rest of America back in time, to a point at which women, and maybe minorities, once again have less rights than wealthy, white, older men.
While that may seem as crazy to all of you as it does to us, don't expect the U.S. Supreme Court to be the last bastion of sensibility, fairness, or justice if the issue arrives on their docket.
With the decision on Tuesday by four Supreme Court Justices to try a case this fall involving Affirmative Action, the concept of a trustworthy Supreme Court, instead of an extremist, conservative, activist court has been thrown into serious question.
We're also not putting our faith in the U.S. Congress to handle this issue properly. While the House Democrats have announced a hearing to be held tomorrow on the issue of Women's Health - with women both overseeing and testifying at the hearing - the Republican majority in the U.S. House, controlled by males, has already announced they won't allow Thursday's proceedings to be broadcast or recorded for TV, radio, or the internet.
Where we are planning on putting our faith, is in our neighbors, and our friends, who are in the true majority in America - women.
Just look at Virginia.
While two of the most offensive anti-womens' rights laws we've seen at a state level are in front of the Virginia House yet again today, neither has passed, in large part due to the large and growing silent protest of Virginia women right outside the doors of the Virginia capitol.
One law would allow - and in some cases mandate - state-sanctioned rape of women, while the other would allow state-funded adoption and foster care agencies to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered families and youth. Both laws have engendered a huge protest.
However, the women of Virginia haven't been allowed to chant and cheer, march and make posters as they stand on the grounds of their capitol. Those kinds of protests are against the laws of the commonwealth.
So they have gone to the Capitol grounds and stood there. Silently.
And they are winning.
Even the Governor of Virginia, who was one of major supporters of these bills has now backed down from his unconditional support of both proposed laws.
If we were the men of the Virginia Legislature, we'd be scared as hell to go home to our wives, mothers, sisters, and female friends if we allowed abominations like this legislation to pass. Something tells us there's going to be a seriously nasty surprise for many of these men if they push this awful idea through - and an even bigger surprise for them in this fall's elections.
