All the Supreme Court Decisions Are Important, Dammit

I woke up this morning and checked my phone as I do every morning and discovered that the Supreme Court made a ruling about the Voting Rights Act and decided to remove federal jurisdiction on states with a history of racial voting discrimination. Intrigued, I started reading a few articles about it. Turns out it's one of the biggest Supreme Court decisions this term along with the DOMA and Prop 8 decisions.

So, why haven't I heard about it until now?

You literally can't throw a stone on the internet without hitting someone talking about the DOMA and Prop 8 decisions. When the trial was going on, my Facebook feed was covered with red equality signs and other signs made to combat those red equality signs. Now that the decisions will be announced tomorrow, those signs are making their way back.

All of this is awesome. I love that these cases have garnered so much public attention, and that most of it is largely in support of marriage equality. Looking at the internet and seeing so many people saying that I should be able to marry the person I love feels amazing.

But let's compare that to the amount of coverage and buzz that the decision about the Voting Rights Act got. Even today, the day of the decision announcement, I haven't seen even a fraction of how much I'm sure I'll see of the DOMA and Prop 8 decisions tomorrow. And a whole lot of what I've seen has been preceded by qualifying statements somewhere along the lines of "Hey, the DOMA and Prop 8 decisions won't be announced until tomorrow morning, but there's this, too, I guess".

This seems like a fairly accurate representation of how the internet feels about this decision.

Really, all of these decisions revolve around the oppression of marginalized groups. The difference is which groups. Unfortunately, a lot of people have the "homophobia is the new racism and racism is over" mentality (like the Supreme Court, apparently) and thus don't really see this decision as a big deal.

It's a really big deal.

The day isn't even over yet, and Texas is already advancing a new Voter ID law and district map. Although, neither of those things is really new since they were already blocked by the federal court last year. For discriminating against black and Latino minorities.

And yet, the buzz is still minimal. Hmm.....maybe it's because a chunk of the LGBT community is white, and so those in power (also mostly white people) subconsciously value their rights more. Although, let's be real, marriage equality only really helps out the L, G, and B, and everyone always forgets about the B. 

All three of these cases are critically important. It just really sucks that they aren't all treated that way.