Speaking of not having a lot of faith in American courts to stop all this fascism, have you heard that a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS has agreed to hear a troll case that might overturn bans on trying to torture (psychological, or otherwise) the gay out of your kids?

https://web.archive.org/web/20250311040645/https://newrepublic.com/article/192561/supreme-court-legalize-conversion-therapy

The Supreme Court Might Re-Legalize LGBTQ Conversion Therapy

"The Supreme Court is taking up yet another case that threatens to roll back the clock for gay and transgender Americans. The justices announced on Monday that they would hear a First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy, the first lawsuit of its kind to reach the high court.

More than 20 states currently forbid medical professionals from offering corrective “treatments” for gay and transgender youth that seek to change their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Major medical organizations have unanimously condemned conversion therapy as unscientific and potentially dangerous for patients. If the justices strike down such laws, states would have far fewer tools to protect gay and transgender Americans from harmful and often coercive treatments."

This entire case is a viper's nest of Christian Nationalist, anti-LGBTQ fuckery so I encourage you to read the whole article; but in the short term I'd like to focus on three important things:

First, there is literally nothing "therapeutic" about so-called "gay conversion therapy" and nobody has a right to try to force heteronormative gender identities and sexual orientation on anyone, including their children, because they think their God wants everyone to be heterosexual. There is no scientific support for these treatments, and while this would still be a monstrous violation of civil liberties even if they did work, they do not. Under the best of circumstances these "therapies" start from a position that non-heteronormative sexual orientations or gender identities represent aberrant, immoral behavior that must be clinically corrected through negative reinforcement; sometimes that's a whole lot of verbal shaming, and sometimes it's literally physical torture. These programs, which are typically targeted at LGBTQ youth, actively harm queer kids and work to scandalize and otherize the existence of LGBTQ identities in our larger society; this harm is reflected directly in studies showing an increase in suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth exposed to gay conversion "therapies" - which is probably fine with fundie fascist American parents who'd clearly rather have a dead child, than a queer one. I shouldn't have to point this out, but you can bet your ass that heterosexual society would (rightfully) lose its shit if someone tried to berate and electroshock straight people into being gay, and there is no constitutionally protected right for people to sell scientifically discredited, actively harmful treatments to straight people under the guise of providing medical care - in fact, that's pretty much illegal unless you make it clear that you're not a doctor or therapist.

Additionally, it should be noted that this case is just another part of a longstanding, and highly organized winger project to use free speech and parental rights, to legally override the autonomy and civil liberties of young people (including their own children) to justify the larger criminalization and suppression of identities they don't think should exist, and they'd like to legislate away as soon as possible. I don't have the space to go down the entire fascist rabbit hole connected to these ideas, but I can assure you that at the bottom of all this are bonkers fascist conspiracy theories that treat existing outside of the heterosexual norm as a type of contagion that can be stopped by legalized repression; which in turn makes this case part of a broader effort to literally criminalize being LGBTQ in our society. This didn't start with, and won't end with, gay conversion therapy.

Finally, and as the author of this piece notes, this whole case is yet another fascist troll job focused on the hypothetical harms to people who want to *checks notes* torture the gay out of kids, rather than any actual dispute rising out of really existing conditions:

"Another issue in Chiles v. Salazar is that the court appears to have taken up yet another case featuring a phantasmal injury to a plaintiff in order to achieve a predetermined outcome. The Supreme Court has an unfortunate habit in recent religious freedom disputes (or religious-adjacent free speech ones, as in this instance) of taking up cases with either underdeveloped records or nonexistent ones."

The undeniable purpose of this case is to overturn legal (and necessary) bans on gay conversion therapy; it has nothing to do with free speech or the plaintiff's right to practice legitimate therapeutical medicine. There is literally no reason for SCOTUS to hear it besides legalizing torturing LGBTQ ppl out of existence.

As Freed #Palestinians Describe #Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion #Arms Package for #Israel

Like the #Biden administration, Trump is claiming an "emergency" in order to bypass Congress.

Brett Wilkins, Feb 28, 2025

"As #Palestinians released from Israeli imprisonment recount torture and other abuse suffered at the hands of their former captors, the Trump administration on Friday approved a new $3 billion weapons package for Israel.

"The new package, reported by Zeteo's Prem Thakker, includes nearly $2.716 billion worth of bombs and weapons guidance kits, as well as $295 million in bulldozers. The Trump administration said that 'an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale,' allowing it to bypass Congress, as the #Biden administration did on multiple occasions. However, the weapons won't be delivered until 2026 or 2027.

"From October 2023 to October 2024, Israel received a record $17.9 billion worth of U.S. arms as it waged a war of annihilation against the #GazaStrip that left more than 170,000 #Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more displaced, starved, or sickened. Israel is facing #genocide allegations in an International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin #Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister #YoavGallant.

"Reporting on the new package came after U.S. Sen. #BernieSanders (I-Vt.) on Monday announced an effort to block four other arms sales totaling $8.56 billion in offensive American weaponry to Israel.

"Meanwhile, some of the approximately 1,000 Palestinians released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap described grim stories of abuse by Israeli forces. The former detainees, who were arrested but never charged with any crimes, 'have returned visibly malnourished and scarred by the physical and psychological torture they say they faced in Israeli prisons,' according to The Washington Post. Some returned to what were once their homes to find them destroyed and their relatives killed or wounded by Israeli forces.

"Eyas al-Bursh, a doctor volunteering at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City when he was captured by Israeli troops, was held in Sde Teiman and the Ofer military prison in the illegally occupied West Bank for 11 months.

"'The places where we were held were harsh, sleep was impossible, and we remained handcuffed and blindfolded,' al-Bursh told the Post.

"'We endured psychological and physical torture without a single day of respite—whether through beatings, abuse, punches, or even verbal insults and humiliation,' he added.

"The #IsraelDefenseForces told the Post that it 'acts in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees held in the detention and questioning facilities.'"

Read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-arms-to-israel
#BibiIsAWarCriminal #TrumpIsAWarCriminal #NoWeaponsForGenocide #IsraeliWarCrimes #FreePalestine #HumanRightsAreNeverWrong #IDF