Have you heard?
National Women’s Soccer League stars Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris are engaged to be married, the couple announced last week. The romance between the athletes began nearly a decade ago when the two met while playing for the U.S. National Team.
Social media was abuzz with the news last week, with people from all over the world sending their congratulations to the couple via Twitter, Instagram, and the like. Popular in their own right for their efforts on and off the soccer field, the union of Krieger and Harris was greeted by soccer fans with excitement.
Even FIFA, the governing body of the World Cup. post a tweet sending their love and congratulations to the couple.
Not everyone sent love and congratulations.
The Republican Party’s 2018 campaign platform declared that “marriage is between one man and one woman” and condemns the Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage legal.
The Vice President of the United States called being gay a choice and said keeping gays from marrying was not discrimination but an enforcement of “God’s idea.” He has repeatedly voted against bills that would prevent discrimination of LGBTQ people in the workplace.
In America today, you can be fired from your job for being gay. That is insanity.
Pence’s wife now works at a school that forbids both LGBTQ students and staff.
Donald Trump, despite his promises during the campaign to protect LBGTQ rights, has been equally bigoted.
His State Department has removed a section about violence and discrimination against LGBTQ people from its annual human rights report. His Justice Department rescinded Obama-era guidance instructing public officers to interpret sexuality and gender discrimination under federal prohibitions on sex discrimination. He twice failed to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month.
It’s so odd to watch so many people around the world celebrate the engagement of these two accomplish and respected women while knowing that the President and Vice President of the United States and the majority of GOP lawmakers would make the marriage of these two women illegal if given the chance.
This is what happens when old, white bigots are in power. They drag their hateful, arcane ideas back into the halls of justice in a desperate attempt to reverse progress.
Happily, far more people in America and around the world are happy for the love that Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris have found, and although progress can be restrained and even temporarily reversed at time, it cannot be stopped forever.
