South Carolina, the state that gave us secession, Strom Thurmond, and barbecue sauce the color of radioactive mustard, is back at it again—this time begging the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp their newest innovation in cruelty: tying school funding to whether or not trans kids get to pee in peace. Yes, the Palmetto State has decided that the most pressing crisis facing its youth isn’t violence, poverty, hunger, or the fact that half the schools look like FEMA shelters after a hurricane—it’s where a teenage boy named John Doe takes a piss.

Here’s the scam: lawmakers slipped a poison-pill into the state budget that says districts lose a quarter of their state money if they let kids use restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Translation: Either ban trans kids from the bathroom that matches who they are, or kiss goodbye to 25% of your already-starved education budget. It’s like extortion by porta-potty.

John Doe—a trans high schooler in Berkeley County—dared to say, “Hey, maybe the Equal Protection Clause means I don’t have to risk a urinary tract infection to appease a bunch of Bible-thumping legislators.” He sued. A district judge, fresh off polishing the Supreme Court’s shoes after they upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, shrugged. But the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals smacked South Carolina’s grubby little hands away, citing the Gavin Grimm precedent that already declared this brand of bathroom bigotry unconstitutional.

But South Carolina wasn’t done. No, they sprinted up the courthouse steps to beg the Supremes for “emergency relief.” Emergency relief. As if the state is about to sink into the Atlantic unless they immediately stop John Doe from pissing in the boys’ room.

And the arguments? They’re the usual Orwellian slurry: This isn’t about sex discrimination. It’s about privacy. Privacy, they say, for the cis kids who apparently suffer PTSD at the idea that a trans boy might be in the next stall. They call it the “will of the people,” as though a unanimous vote by a bunch of Confederate cosplay legislators magically sanctifies bigotry. They want the Court to “preserve the status quo.” Because for them, the “status quo” is a golden idol: a world where kids like John Doe are bullied by law, humiliated in policy, and erased in practice.

Make no mistake: this isn’t about bathrooms. It’s about branding. South Carolina lawmakers are strutting onto the culture war stage, waving their little bathroom ban like a Confederate flag with fresh Sharpie ink. They’ve got no answers for crumbling schools, generational poverty, or why half their counties look like extras from Deliverance. But they’ve got a solution for the nonexistent epidemic of trans kids peeing wrong.

And of course, they’re counting on the Supreme Court’s new six-seat clown car majority to bail them out. Alito and Thomas, those twin medieval gargoyles, are salivating at the chance to rewrite Equal Protection into Separate but Equal: Restroom Edition. Roberts will mumble about “tradition.” Kavanaugh will cry in his beer. Barrett will phone a priest. And Gorsuch will sit there pretending to be a libertarian while signing off on state-sponsored harassment.

Meanwhile, John Doe—an actual kid, remember—just wants to survive high school without being told he’s a criminal every time he needs to take a leak. That’s it. That’s the whole “emergency.” South Carolina is willing to tank education funding, clog the courts, and waste taxpayer money, all to stop a teenager from pissing with dignity.

It’s not just cruel. It’s pathetic. It’s South Carolina in a nutshell: a state that calls itself the Bible Belt but spends all its time worshiping the golden calf of hate.