After Tuesday’s election along with the Facebook posts expressing depression at the outcome, there were many expressing fear of what might very well happen if the president-elect goes through with his campaign promises, both those he actually meant and those he stated in order to pander for votes

There were also the posts advising people not to be so fearful, to be unified, and explaining that any fears were the product of disappointment. Some of the admonitions to simply “get over it and move on” came from people who have been posting examples of their not having accepted Obama as their president for the last eight years and relying on debunked claims of scandals to justify their choices

They are like those who, while displaying the Confederate Battle Flag, the Stars and Bars, because it is their heritage, object to any person or any attempt to curb their display because of history, tell Black Americans they need to forget about slavery and move on. The descendants of those who fought to keep slavery demand they be allowed to remember and invoke that defense, but those who are the descendants of those enslaved should not remember their past.

I understand the “get over it and move on” group are honest and optimistic, but have a common trait. They are those who may be anticipating certain changes that would only mean some adjustment, but they are not those who actually have a lot to lose.

They actually illustrate what one of the divisions in this country is.

Those who have and have had, have no idea what it is like for those who don’t, or those whose possession of equality is tenuous and are about to have that taken away.

There are those who by luck and accident of birth are in comfortable circumstances and who, because of this, do not understand what things could be like for those who are not.

Here is what one group faces, and I know the fear many in that group have because I am part of that group, and I know the work that went into being able to have the rights every citizen should have because the Constitution applies to all of us

Whether pandering for votes or not, Donald Trump said he would nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would reverse the ruling of nation-wide marriage equality.

Trump told CBN’s David Brody that evangelical voters should trust him to overturn marriage equality, stating,

“They can trust me on traditional marriage. I was very much in favor of having the court rule that it goes to states and let the states decide.”

This would mean that even in a state that accepts same sex marriage, federal income tax claims and benefits would not exist, and in states that do not accept it, state income tax benefits and claims wouldn’t either.

In today’s society and employment situation, a couple may not have a say on where they might have to move for work, and while they would get benefits in one state, benefits like hospital visitation, medical decision making, inheritance, and joint filing of income taxes, they could lose those in another, and where adoption in one state might make both people parents, this would not be so in another.

And marriage equality aside, Trump has said he would appoint justices like Antonin Scalia who opposed a woman’s right to choose.

I guess since I am not a woman, it is all right for me to tell women who fear a reversal of Roe v Wade to just move on?

Trump has said he will sign the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) if it is passed by congress.

For those who do not know what this is, it would allow any businesses, landlords, healthcare providers, and employers to discriminate against GLBT people by claiming to be motivated by a “religious belief or moral conviction”.

Being denied a wedding cake may seem trivial to those who do not face that denial, no matter how many marriages they need one for, but imagine being denied treatment at the scene of a car accident because the EMT holds certain religious beliefs. And, for those who had not experienced it, there were incidents during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic when it was believed to only affect Gays, where EMT’s upon arriving at someone’s home simply turned and left because it was clear the person was Gay.

I lost a friend that way.

We do not want to return to that because someone can use religion as an excuse.

The problem is that a person can just declare a religious belief even if it is not an official tenet of the religion to which they belong as the law refers only to the individual person’s “religious belief or moral conviction”.

In 2014 President Obama signed an Executive Order prohibiting anti-GLBT discrimination among federal contractors. Trump said he would undo President Obama’s Executive Orders on day one.

It sildenafil prices is free from preservatives, chemicals and additives. Common causes of impotence induct levitra on line nerve diseases, psychological conditions and diseases that affect blood flow. In numerous social orders, examining the issue of erectile dysfunction which is also known as impotence is the incapability to get an erection whereas generic levitra online inconsistent or brief erections are faced by few other men. Another preferred treatment is injections, through which drug is best for a certain order cheap levitra type of men aren’t yet known. First Gay and Lesbian people could not serve in the military, no matter how much they loved the country, and could be given a dishonorable discharge if their sexual orientation were discovered which would strip them of any benefits they may have earned through service, and could affect future employment.

Then came Don’t ask/Don’t tell that allowed Gay and Lesbian Americans to serve, but if they said anything whether through word or deed, such as being seen dating someone of the same sex while on leave, the same could happen.

And when that was removed, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the end of the ban on Transgender people serving.

Trump reduced people to a disembodied thing when he announced he would do away with “political correctness” in the military as the inclusive policy was “ridiculous.”

He also opposes letting women serve in frontline combat roles.

Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate, and if Trump chooses to be the figurehead president while leaving the actual work to his cabinet and assistants, besides being only a heart beat away from the presidency, Pence could actually be the working president.

Last year, as governor, Mike Pence signed the law that allows businesses to use “religious freedom” as a defense against lawsuits. That law also allowed for anti-GLBT discrimination until boycotts and business objections began to cost the state money. But rather than sign an amended version of that law that removed the permission to discriminate because of the affect it had on people in his state, he signed it because of money.

He recently said that all people are deserving of respect when objecting to Hillary Clinton’s reference to a “basket of deplorables”. But those were people who supported Trump, and it is obvious with Pence, money gets respect, but not every person does.

While serving in congress Pence supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman, claiming,  “societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family”, and he also said keeping gays from marrying was not discrimination, but an enforcement of “God’s idea.”

He voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would have banned discrimination against people based on sexual orientation

Pence opposed ending Don’t ask/Don’ tell because he did not want to see the military become a social experiment.

The federal government directed school districts to allow students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. Again, Transgender people were reduced from being people to just entities that pee as Pence opposed Obama’s directive and said it was a state issue. Again, where a person pees would vary from state to state.

The rights that have been won by having to unnecessarily fight for them as they are in the Constitution may be taken away and would call for refighting old battles to get back.

This is what I, and those like me face. So it is not that easy to just move on. It may be for those whose rights are safe, but not so much for the GLBT Community, Muslims, and adults illegally brought to this country as infants.

While people object to people expressing their displeasure with Donald Trump having fallen into the presidency, perhaps by the rigged election he spoke about often in the weeks before the actual event, by protesting on the street, an action that is, by the way, totally their right according to the Constitution, will they equally object to the ‘victory’ parade announced by the Loyal White Knights, a KKK chapter,  that will take place in North Carolina during December?

According to the group’s published statement, “Trump’s race united my people”.

The KKK’s claim that “our people” helped Trump keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House may not mean much to those unaffected by the past and present of the KKK, but it does make those who have been affected by the past  and present of the KKK a little fearful of a president who during his campaign claimed not to have much knowledge of them, but whose father had been arrested in 1927 after a KKK riot in Queens where over 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighborhood.

If people choose to believe that Trump did not really mean what he said during the campaign, they have to also accept that he lied to them to get their votes under false pretenses and that he did so for himself and his ambition and not for what was best for the people. They would also have to accept that he did this banking on the existence of a prejudice, or, worse, hatred of some citizens toward other citizens, or at the very least he sought out some misgivings he could turn into all out fear and hatred.

At any rate, he assumed an extreme negative of the American people and used that assumption as a tool, and may very well have created a self promoting monster where none had actually existed before.

If your future under Trump shows no signs of great loss, don’t judge and then condemn those who have been threatened by him.

 

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