South Carolina is in direct contempt of court with McMaster signing H. 4624
by jovan1984
Columbia — The state of South Carolina has shown complete contempt for a court order that was handed down late last month.
In signing H. 4624, Henry McMaster and Alan Wilson flouted and violated the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ order that prohibits the enforcement of any bans on transgender people getting health care.
On the week ending on April 27, the Fourth Circuit Court issued a circuit-wide injunction on state laws banning transgender people from getting health care after the court overwhelmingly struck down West Virginia’s law, which has the exact same language as South Carolina’s law.
That ruling applies to all of the jurisdictions in the Fourth Circuit: the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and (of course) West Virginia.
The US Supreme Court has denied West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s appeal since there has not been a judicial split, meaning the permanent injunction stays until there is a split from any of the 12 other circuits, if that ever happens. The other lawsuits challenging other states’ unconstitutional bans on transgender people getting health care is working through the federal courts at a snail’s pace.
As a commenter told me in a reply on Facebook, H. 4624 “bans all treatment of youth and bans using state healthcare funds for treating adults. Before this they backdoored a ban by threatening state funds to any entity receiving state funds treating transgender persons.”
H. 4624, in laymen’s terms, is no different than the West Virginia ban that was struck down as a violation of at least five different federal laws: the 1st, 9th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution; federal Medicaid law; and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will have H. 4624 on their dockets as early as the weekend. They should not even entertain a hearing on this egregiously unconstitutional law.
Instead, they should strike the law down upon setting a court date for a hearing. South Carolina is in contempt of court and the state should be severely punished for it.
As the old axioms from Saint Augustine of Hippo go: Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is right, even if no one is doing it.
Those axioms most certainly apply here.
Aiken Area Progressive 