When Michigan Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow stood on the chamber floor to take on a Republican colleague who had accused her of wanting to sexually groom children, she was denouncing not just an isolated incident, but an onslaught of GOP attacks on the LGBTQ community....
The rapid escalation in public support for the LGBTQ community’s rights in recent years had quieted much of the blatant homophobia in the nation’s political discourse. But, in recent weeks, Republicans have reverted to verbal and legal assaults on the community, sometimes employing baseless tropes that suggest children are being groomed or recruited by defenders of gay rights. The efforts ahead of the midterm elections are intended to rile up the Republican base and fill the campaign coffers of its candidates, without offering evidence that any Democrat had committed a repugnant crime....
In Michigan, McMorrow had been one of three Democrats to walk out of an invocation that GOP state Sen. Lana Theis gave on the Senate floor a week ago, during which she prayed for children “under attack” from “forces.” After the walkout, Theis accused McMorrow by name in a fundraising email of wanting to “groom and sexualize kindergartners.”
Theis and McMorrow got into it on the Senate floor, after which
Theis did not respond to a request for a comment. But her characterization was in keeping with other attempts to portray Democratic supporters of gay rights as, at minimum, aiding pedophiles.
The new thrust counters the decision by most Republican politicians in recent years to largely avoid the subject of LGBTQ rights given widespread support from Americans. The party in 2004 had mounted multiple state campaigns against same-sex marriage in an effort to boost turnout for President George W. Bush’s reelection effort, but the nation’s views have changed sharply since that time.
Republicans recently have used language similar to Theis’s to attack their critics who speak out against the ramped-up efforts to restrict protections for LGBTQ youth. They have specifically referenced the notion of “grooming,” which is used to denote adults sexualizing children.
Several weeks ago, as Florida Republicans were pushing legislation to ban discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms up to third grade, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, made an audacious claim on Twitter about the measure Democrats referred to as the “don’t say gay” bill.
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules,” Pushaw said. In response to a request for comment, Pushaw said Wednesday that she had not singled out LGBTQ people as groomers “because groomers can be of any orientation or identity.”
Critics responded in outrage while other Republicans made similar accusations.
“The Democrats are the party of pedophiles. The Democrats are the party of princess predators from Disney,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga,) said in an interview she posted on Twitter. “The Democrats are the party of elementary school teachers, trying to transition their elementary-school aged children and convince them they’re a different gender. This is the party of their identity, and their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible things happening in our country.”
The language echoes that of QAnon conspiracy theorists, who Greene regularly endorsed during her time as a conservative provocateur before she ran for Congress. QAnon followers believed powerful Democrats were running a secret child sex trafficking ring and that President Donald Trump would expose it.
“We’re seeing the recycling of tropes; there are go-to tropes that people use and this notion that somehow a child being taught in school is “grooming” them to have a particular sexual orientation,” said Sharon McGowan, legal director of Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization. “I do think we saw a complete disregard for some of the norms during the Trump era, there was a brazenness packaged as, ‘I’m not afraid to say the hard truths;' now they’re wearing the more outrageous, more offensive as a badge of pride.”
This "grooming" thing always had the small of psychological projection and now the conservative New York Post unironically reports
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem raised eyebrows Friday when she said that her granddaughter, who is just a year old, already has a shotgun and a rifle.
Speaking at the annual National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, the conservative firebrand told the crowd that her granddaughter, “Little Miss Addie” is already “set up” for her future with the weapons — and a pony.
“Little Miss Addie, who is almost two, and Branch who’s just a few months old, they have brought us so much joy. They’ve brought us purpose,” Noem told the crowd, video of her remarks shared on social media shows.
“’Now Addie, who you know — soon will need them [guns]. I wanna reassure you, she already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle and she’s got a little pony named Sparkles too. So the girl is set up,” the conservative added.
Well, isn't that just the sweetest thing, especially coming from arguably the leading candidate to join Donald Trump on a presidential ticket in 2024. Nor was it merely performative and/or an effort to curry favor with the Republican Party's most deadly interest groups because
Noem, a staunch supporter of gun rights, took time during her 24-minute speech to sign an executive order for her state to “further protect the 2nd Amendment rights of South Dakotans.”
The order would prohibit government agencies from contracting with businesses that discriminate against “a firearm-related entity,” according to KELThis isn't going to become the face of G.O.P. all by itself, nor even with the legacy media's help.
“The girl is set up.” Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem reveals her one-year-old granddaughter has a shotgun and a rifle. How cute. pic.twitter.com/NgjYxuO8iV
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 15, 2023
This should become the face of the Republican Party and it has to be Democratic officials who maintain, loudly and clearly, that Republican politicians such as Kristi Noem are the very backbone of her Party.
No comments:
Post a Comment