The extreme Republicans' agenda

The radical religionists who control the USA’s Republican Party have made abundantly clear that if they get the chance, they intend to take away the civil and human rights of LGBT Americans. All they need to make good on their promise is to win the White House and maintain control of Congress. Both could happen, if mainstream people do nothing to prevent it.

Distant third place Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio has pledged to overturn marriage equality (and outlaw all abortions) by appointing only Supreme Court justices who pledge to do so. Canadian-born Rafael "Ted" Cruz, who is usually in second place, has also promised to do the same thing. Both have long histories of making bigoted anti-LGBT remarks, so this isn’t really any surprise.

However, changing the Supreme Court to take away the civil and human rights of LGBT people will take time, so the Republican extremists have a faster final solution: The radicals have proposed a bill they dishonestly call the “First Amendment Defense Act” (FADA), and it would prohibit the federal government from “taking discriminatory action against a person on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

In other words, if the extremist Republicans get their way, they would be completely free to force their “religious freedom” on LGBT Americans, and the federal government could do absolutely nothing about it. So, a business, person, or organisation could legally and gleefully discriminate against LGBT people.

There’s a crushing irony in this, of course, because those same religious extremists would be protected from discrimination against themselves, so, they could treat LGBT people as less than human, but LGBT people could not legally return the favour. Pretty sweet deal for the extremists!

So far, six Republican clowns candidates have pledged to enact the “First Amendment Defense [sic] Act within the first 100 days of their presidency. They are: Cruz, Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rick “Spreading” Santorum, and Rev. Gov. Mike “the Huckster” Huckabee. While only Cruz and Rubio are truly viable candidates, they’re also the second and third ranked in most polls, and Ben Carson is still usually highly ranked. Fiorina, Santorum and The Huckster all have absolutely no chance whatsoever, so their pledge is completely meaningless.

Not (yet) making that same pledge to the radicals, but still expressing support for the measure, are frontrunner Donald “The Hair” Trump, Jeb! (just don’t say) Bush, Lindsay “is he still in the race?” Graham, and Rand “what colour is the sky on your home planet” Paul.

The easiest way to stop the extremist Republicans’ dystopian future is to elect a Democrat as president: None of the three Democratic candidates would sign such an anti-American bill into law. This would also stop the radicals’ long-term plans by ensuring that far-right radicals aren’t appointed to the US Supreme Court.

However, the best way to stop the extremists altogether would be to vote only for Democrats—preferably progressive Democrats—for the US Congress and state legislatures. Republicans won’t give up their efforts to Make America 1850 Again™, and they’ll do nothing to end the power of the oligarchs and plutocrats—only Democrats can do that.

For so very many reasons, the 2016 election is shaping up to very consequential. I’ve already pledged to only vote for Democrats in 2016, and this stupid “FADA” is only one of many, many reasons why.