Have you ever quoted that Martin Niemoller prayer- the one that begins, "First they came for...? Well, they're here for me. Will you sit and watch and hope they get bored before they reach you?

Because they know so many Americans will sit on their hands when it comes to LGBT rights, the present administration finds going after the mean gays is a good Trojan horse for larger policy goals.

Like repealing virtually all antidiscrimination laws, for example.

You may think religious freedom is a perfectly valid reason for a pious old lady in Tri-Cities, WA to refuse sticks and twigs for a gay wedding, or a hateful Duggerite baker couple in Oregon to chase a lesbian couple and their kids out to their car after they tried to order a wedding cake in a store ostensibly open to the public.

It has nothing to do with you.

So you think. The trouble with hearing from God is that you can't put him on speakerphone. So you don't know if God really told the pharmacist who refuses to sell you birth control pills that that's what he wants. He coulda just as easily been telling that pharmacist, "Don't make me come down there and smite you, fool!"

This next Supreme Court term we will learn if the unverified voice of God makes every American his or her own moral arbiter, with the power to ignore the law because Bible. Already an Indiana mother- citing Mike Pence's antigay religious freedom law- has skated criminal charges for beating her child black and blue witha wire coathanger. God told her to.

God told another Indiana man he doesn't have to pay taxes.

When I was a prosecutor, I always told juries that if I couldn't convince them, beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant was guilty, they had a duty to let him go home. "When we make it easy to convict the guilty," I said, "we make it easy to convict anybody, for anything."

That's why you should care about about this story:

In a major upcoming Supreme Court case that weighs equal rights with religious liberty, the Trump administration on Thursday sided with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The Department of Justice on Thursday filed a brief on behalf of baker Jack Phillips, who was found to have violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to created a cake to celebrate the marriage of Charlie Craig and David Mullins in 2012. Phillips said he doesn’t create wedding cakes for same-sex couples because it would violate his religious beliefs.

The government agreed with Phillips that his cakes are a form of expression, and he cannot be compelled to use his talents for something in which he does not believe.

“Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights,” acting solicitor general Jeffrey B. Wall wrote in the brief.

The DOJ’s decision to support Phillips is the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken to rescind Obama administration positions favorable to gay rights and to advance new policies on the issue.

But Louise Melling, the deputy legal counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the couple, said she was taken aback by the filing.

“Even in an administration that has already made its hostility” toward the gay community clear, Melling said, “I find this nothing short of shocking.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has moved to block transgender Americans from serving in the military, and his Department of Education has done away with guidance to schools on how they should accommodate transgender students.

Federal courts are split on that issue, and the Supreme Court this term might take up the issue.

Indeed, lawyers for Jameka Evans, who claims she was fired by Georgia Regional Hospital because of her sexual orientation and “nonconformity with gender norms of appearance and demeanor,” on Thursday asked justices to take her case.

Citing a 1979 precedent, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected her protection claims.

Taking that case, along with Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, would make the coming Supreme Court term the most important for gay rights issues since the justices voted 5 to 4 in 2015 to find a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.

86 members of Congress have also filed a brief to make America a theocracy. All of them are Republicans.

Imagine the most intrusive, spiteful Christianist you ever met. Now imagine him, or her, with the power to treat you like you're as loathsome as the most loathsome creature- to them- on God's earth. And because you did nothing, you will deserve to learn the lessons with which they show you their love.