BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA — This summer, proponents of marriage equality throughout the nation will turn its eyes to the Supreme Court. It is expected that sometime in June the nine most important and powerful justices in the Judicial Branch will decide a handful of appeals cases that could essentially establish the right to marry as one enshrined within the Constitution’s guarantees of equality under the law. This news has social conservatives scrambling to protect their citizenry from the horrors of adults loving other adults. In the super-red state of Louisiana, The Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act was the latest in a slew of red states that have attempted to block the Federal government from insisting that the 14th Amendment (as well as those that come before and after) are respected, but after seeing the blow back that Indiana got for its similar law earlier this year, the Jazz State’s House Civil Law and Procedure Committee voted 10-2 to kill the bill, citing concerns over negative publicity for the state, among other issues.
But Governor Bobby Jindal (R), has stepped in and declared that he will enact the law himself, using his executive order pen. In a written statement, the conservative Republican wrote that he was “disappointed by the committee’s action to return the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act to the calendar,” and that he will be “issuing an Executive Order shortly that will accomplish the intent of HB 707 to prevent the state from discriminating against persons or entities with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.” Jindal’s critics immediately seized on Jindal’s statement, pointing out the apparent hypocrisy of Jindal — who has lambasted President Obama for using his “pen and phone” too much to bypass Congress — accomplishing by executive fiat what his own state legislators did not want to push forward.
This morning, while Jindal was out having his morning coffee and doughnut at a local establishment, members of the press asked him about his threat to use executive orders to forbid gay people from marrying in his state. One reporter asked him if he thought a Muslim governor should use executive orders to enact a rule that coincides with Sharia Law, if they felt those religious beliefs they were acting on were “deeply” or “sincerely” held. To that, Jindal responded, “I see what you’re trying to do here, mainstream media, and let me tell you something: I am not enacting Sharia Law here. Just because Sharia Law means biblical law, and I am using the Bible as my reasoning, it’s totally different.”
“What I’m doing isn’t Sharia. It’s not about religion, I promise. It’s about me flexing my executive muscle. So it’s less about God and more about me,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters. “I am willing to enact Jindal-ria law to keep the gays down, but I will not call it a religious commandment of course. It’s just…a commandment, issued from my pen, that just so happens to have intellectual and philosophical ties to my personal religious beliefs. See? Totally different from Sharia Law.”
One reporter asked Jindal if he thinks using executive orders in 2015 — just a few weeks before the Supreme Court is widely expected to strike down same-sex marriage bans in general principle — to ban same-sex marriage doesn’t qualify as “stupid.” The reference was to the fact that in the wake of their 2012 shellacking, Jindal said his party must stop being the “stupid party.” Jindal paused for a moment, then said, “Is it stupid to defend the rights of people to discriminate for no reason against people who are doing no wrong? Is it wrong to stand up for the forces of systemic oppression that is built on backwards, unevolved thinking? Is it stupid to use the might of the government to force your discriminatory practices on people who just want to live in peace? Is it, in fact stupid, to care on any level what two adults do when they fuck?”
There was a deafening silence in the restaurant. Jindal took the silence to mean that they all wanted to answer “yes” to all his rapidly-fired rhetorical questions. He frowned. “Whatever, if it’s stupid to be a champion of repression, pain and hatred, then go get my dunce hat. Because God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him, shall be allowed to trample the gays’ civil liberties. God bless America!”
Jindal quickly inhaled the last half of his doughnut and left the restaurant.
