It’s not that I am any less overjoyed that DOMA got the toss from SCOTUS this week.  It’s a victory for fairness and equality; and for plain common sense.

That it happened this week means  we must celebrate the news while bitterly recognizing that social justice battles are NEVER over; because this was also the week in which that same black robed posse rolled back the clock on civil rights to the shameful days of 1964.

In remarks explaining why it overturned a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the nation’s highest court completely discounted blatant attempts at voter suppression that occurred in the general election as recently as last November.

As far as the Supremes are concerned, racial equality is a done deal.

Finishing the job begun with Citizens United, this decision sets the stage for future U.S. Congresses to be even less representative of “we the people” than they are now.

As if to illustrate the complete disconnect that exists between the supposedly post-racial U.S. that SCOTUS imagines we’ve got going on here, and the simmering stew that actually exists, American media has virtually ignored the knee-capping of  votier rights to focus instead on the etiquette of racially charged semantics.  

They devoted hours of debate to discussing whether or not celebrity chef Paula Deen ought to be run out of town on a rail for her use of the ultimate racial perjorative, not for the bizarre antebellum reference in which the word was used; then they capped off the week by “examining” whether use of the word “cracker” in the Trayvon Martin murder case was somehow an equivalent outrage!

Whether the target is black Americans’ or women’s rights, we are witnessing new assaults on those values that threaten to undo much of the good that was accomplished over decades of struggle.

So, even once marriage equality finally (inevitably) becomes the law of the land, LGBT Americans would be well advised to stay organized and activist.  Someone will (also inevitably) be waiting in the wings to try and take it all away again.