This commentary is by Bob Stannard of Manchester, an author, musician and former state legislator and lobbyist.
Last month was an interesting time in American history. First we witnessed the expulsion of Rep. Justin Jones and Justin Pierson from the Tennessee House of Representatives.
Then this past week we saw the Montana House of Representatives chastise Rep. Zooey Zephyr. Rep. Zephyr is transgender.
In both cases, the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans. Now that the Republicans no longer have the abortion issue to use to divide this country, they appear to have latched on to the transgender community.
Why do the Republicans care so much about this segment of our society? Could it be because they may very well be the smallest minority in America? This according to National Library of Medicine: “Perhaps the best current estimate is provided by Flores et al. who estimated that 0.6% of U.S. adults, approximately 560 per 100,000, identify as transgender. They used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is administered annually to randomly selected adults across the United States.”
There are about 1 million people living in America who identify as transgender out of 332,000,000. That’s not very many people, but do these rabid radicals really hate this minority? Why?
Well, it might be because those people who transition from their birth sex to the opposite make some of us feel uncomfortable. We can’t begin to relate to the struggle these folks go through and, since we can’t relate to them, we tend to fear them. Once you fear someone, hate is not very far behind.
The radical right has discovered that the majority of Americans do not favor their draconian laws prohibiting abortions. They fought for 50 years against Roe v. Wade and they finally won. The bad news is that the majority of Americans are not happy with this victory and the backlash the GOP is experiencing is not inconsequential. Thus the need for a new scapegoat.
The trans community does not have nearly the support that the pro-choice community has, so they are an easier target. The GOP is hoping that the majority will forget about the radical right’s Neanderthal position on gun law and abortions. They could not have handled either issue worse had they taken a course in “What Not To Do In Politics.”
Tennessee state Reps. Jones and Pierson had the audacity to speak up in support of kids who are being killed by military-style weapons almost daily. Their penalty for standing up for their constituents was expulsion from the House. Their reward was that they went from total obscurity to becoming international celebrities overnight. Both reps were reinstalled and the Republican House speaker looked like the buffoon that he is. The speaker made martyrs out of both of them men. Nice going.
Now, you might think that this would’ve come under “lessons learned” for the Montana House, but no. The speaker of that GOP-controlled House has banished a transgender representative, Zooey Zephyr, refusing to allow her to speak on the House floor for the entire duration of the session. Thus, Rep. Zephyr went from obscurity to national fame.
Whatever plan the GOP had to punish Rep. Zephyr has spectacularly backfired. People are showing sympathy and caring for this young woman — kinda like what the Bible says we’re supposed to do:. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
These actions by the radical right are no accident. For many years now, some very rich folks have been funding think tanks and organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, to push extremist propaganda and positions onto Americans. They may seem innocuous at first, but once you learn who’s behind them and what the real agenda is, it’s clear that their motives are suspect.
When a political party can win elections only by beating upon the weakest among us, by gerrymandering districts and by undermining other minority groups’ voting rights, then you have a party that has fallen out of favor. However, it hasn’t fallen out of power.
The irony is that there are news organizations like Fox News that have had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for promoting election fraud lies. The titular head of the GOP is still blathering that the 2020 elections were stolen while he was the one who tried to steal them. This is all happening in plain view.
The majority must decide whether to fight back and stand up for the weakest among us or sit back and do nothing. Should they choose the latter, it won’t be long before they will become the victims. The choice, as always, is yours.
My dad once told me that when it came to how other people wanted to live to mind my own business. Just live your life the way you think you should. Don’t pass judgment on others and, as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on you, then leave them alone. It was the best advice ever.
