With Roe overturned, America is no longer ‘land of the free, home of the brave’

Given that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade and could potentially be targeting contraception and gay rights next, it is time to remove “land of the free” from our national anthem. Might as well do away with “home of the brave” as well, given that Republicans do not seem to be able to stand up to the religious right.

Last time I checked, there was something in the Constitution about the separation of church and state. Seems our Supreme Court justices, and a lot of our elected officials, have forgotten that.

Regina Gomory, Crystal Lake

Republicans on a steamroll

The new Republican Party seems intent on taking away from women their reproductive rights, in spite of the fact this may cost the party votes.

Keep up the good work, Reps. It’s high time that women finally learned their place again. The human race made it through a million years or so without anything like “equal rights.” So, let’s now bring back the good old days.

Let’s give those rear-view Republicans a hand. They really have great basic, primitive intuition. And, remember, that is exactly what got humanity through those first million years. Right?

Gene Strohl, Chicagoan transplanted to California

Prejudgment of the case

No matter what issue was before the Supreme Court, and there were certainly major ones this year pertaining to guns, religion and abortion, it was obvious to anyone paying attention that decisions were based on personal preferences that had little to do with the Constitution.

A caption below a New Yorker Magazine cartoon published in 1973 was on point: A judge states, “I’m happy to say that my final judgment of a case is almost always consistent with my prejudgment of the case.”

Looking at the backgrounds of these justices, can there be any doubt? As former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said in 1907, while he was New York’s governor, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”

Larry Vigon, Jefferson Park

Justice Thomas, watch out

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made the suggestion that cases involving married couples’ right to obtain contraceptives, the right to engage in private sexual acts and same-sex marriage should be overturned.

Justice Thomas, be careful. Your conservative friends might decide to rule that Plessy v. Ferguson was wrongly overturned. They don’t need your vote.

Warren Rodgers Jr., Matteson

A look at priorities

Apparently, according to the six radical activist judges on the Supreme Court, states may not prevent people from carrying their guns in public, but they can force people to carry their rapist’s pregnancy to term.

Daniel Welch, Glen Ellyn

Supreme Court hypocrisy

The Supreme Court expanded gun rights under the Second Amendment when it struck down a New York gun law that had placed restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon outside of one’s home. This is just the latest example of the total hypocrisy of the Supreme Court’s conservative members.

Otherwise, why would Justice Brett Kavanaugh have a problem with a lone man carrying a gun in front of his house earlier this month? Wasn’t this person just exercising his Second Amendment rights? Maybe he was just practicing self-defense?

Instead, the man was arrested. I would imagine the conservative justices would feel differently if they, and soon their families, didn’t have 24-hour protection provided by U.S. marshals.

Jeff Meyer, Chicago

Ken Griffin is right about crime

I read that Ken Griffin is moving his Citadel firm out of Chicago. He mentions several reasons, one of them being ongoing crime.

I do not agree with him on some of his positions, but on crime he is exactly right. Crime is rampant in the city. Innocent Chicagoans are being killed on a regular basis. I do not understand how Mayor Lori Lightfoot can come to work every day and not firmly take a stand and finally begin to crack down on the criminal element. And she expects to be re-elected?

Other business organizations have recently left the city, and you can be certain that many of those remaining are looking hard at Griffin’s decision as they, too, assess the situation. And where are Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in all of this? Absent and silent.

Shame on them for leaving Chicago and its interests twist in the wind.

Howard Herman, Skokie

Bon voyage, Mr. Griffin

It’s reported that billionaire Ken Griffin intends to move his business to Florida. Could he be in a snit over his inability to buy political outcomes here that nobody wants?

But at least he’s likely to be more comfortable living in DeSantis-land, where at the moment, right-wing Republicanism holds sway despite threatening to self-destruct from its fits of outrageous, anti-democratic governance, including picking fights with the Disney Corp.

It evidently never occurred to Griffin to try to buy civic tranquility, instead of wasting his cash on losing candidates like Bruce Rauner or Richard Irvin. The $50 million he donated to Irvin would have done much to achieve a higher civic goal if invested instead in depressed areas, delivering what Griffin says he wants: safety, peace and quiet. As with Rauner, he succeeded only in enriching the media by buying ads.

Bon voyage, Mr. Griffin. And good luck dodging the hurricanes Florida is known for, not to mention rising sea levels.

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park