They must swear to place the Constitution above family, friends, community, party, and even their loyalty to their gods or religions:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Like most people my age, I learned this in 4th or 5th grade civics; we went to school before Reagan gutted civics education in America to lay the foundation for privatizing our public school systems, along with most other government functions.
The fact that there's not a louder outcry against Republican efforts to undermine the Constitution demonstrates the sad state of civics education in America today.
Teachers are government employees, so Republicans in Florida are within their rights to punish or even fire them with their "Don't Say Gay" law if they allow a discussion in class of little Jimmy's two mommies.
It's disgusting, un-American, bigoted and a crass political stunt, but it does fall within the powers granted legislatures by the Constitution.
But when Disney - a corporate "person" the Supreme Court says is protected by the Bill of Rights (even if I do disagree with their logic) - publicly protests the legislation, and Republicans openly and proudly punish Disney for taking a stand about government behavior ("petitioning for redress"), they're spitting on the very Constitution they swore to protect and defend.
The First Amendment to the Constitution - the most important of the Bill of Rights, which is why it was placed first - guarantees that government cannot deny any American (or, by SCOTUS logic, American corporation) their free speech rights, including the right to openly challenge government policies:
"Congress shall make no law " abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Article 6 of the Constitution also contains the "Supremacy Clause," which puts federal law and the Constitution above all state laws. When Comrade DeSantis declares he's signing the legislation because, like a mob boss or tinpot dictator, he wants to punish them for their speech, he's breaking the law.
He came right out and said it, after all:
"You're a corporation based in Burbank, Calif., and you're gonna marshal your economic might to attack the parents of my state? We view that as a provocation, and we're going to fight back against that."
DeSantis' spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, tried to apply a layer of fog over the strongman autocrat's actions, saying, "It is not 'retaliatory' to pass legislation that gets rid of carve-outs and promotes a fairer environment for all companies to do business."
And, indeed, if that's all that had happened, she'd be right. But DeSantis' own words put the lie to her efforts to sanitize his obvious dislike of our constitutional republic and its First Amendment.
In this, DeSantis is simply following in Trump's footsteps.
Trump's trashing the press - also protected by the First Amendment - and attacking the right to protest (most visibly with his assault on protestors in Lafayette Square and sending anonymized federal kidnappers into Portland) has established a new fascist baseline for Republican politicians.
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