Republican governors in two states rejected legislation to ban transgender school children from playing girl’s sports — endangering their prospects by opposing GOP leaders that have used the exploitation of gender identity among conservatives seeking to divide Americans as part of a bitter culture war.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed bills approved by state legislators that would ban transgender girls from participating in gender-designated youth sports.
Although the economy has been hijacked by the wealthy in ways that put America’s once-burgeoning middle-class into a tailspin the GOP has relied upon culture war divisions to ensure success in politics without regard for the growing dangers around the world.
As climate change and authoritarian aggression go unchecked, many Americans are preoccupied discussing whether elite members of the political establishment have lost touch with the common people by failing to appreciate religion and dismissing people’s concerns with morality.
Refusing to mollify the party’s conservative wing could end the careers of Cox or Holcomb if they field challengers amid a fired-up GOP base but the governors acted courageously at a time when most Republican leaders have abandoned bravery, truth, and justice.
Cox expressed support for President Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020 but he was an ardent social media critic during the 2016 campaign and his veto amounts to an unusual act of bravery in a right-wing party that most of which has unquestioningly followed its lying, authoritarian leader into a rabbit hole.
“And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly,” Cox wrote in his veto message after pointing out that of 75,000 high school athletes in Utah, only four are transgender students and just one of them participates in girl’s sports.
“Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about,” Cox wrote. “Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few.”
Andrea Ganna, oft the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Finland, said a massive 2019 study shows there is no one gene that determines a person’s sexual orientation, but genetics — along with environment — play a part in shaping sexuality, and her research reinforces the understanding that same-sex sexual behavior is simply “a natural part of our diversity as a species.”
Cox and Holcomb are at odds with some high-profile Republican governors in such states as Iowa, Florida and South Dakota, where ambitious GOP politicians have exploited LGBTQ Americans as sexually-nonconforming individuals have grown more visible in society and pop culture.
“In a sign that sanity is possible amid today’s culture wars, the Republican governors of Utah and Indiana this week vetoed mean-spirited bills passed by their legislatures to address a fake crisis about transgender student-athletes,” said Mark Wingfield, the publisher of Baptist News Global.
“This year already is on record for producing the largest number of anti-LGBTQ — and specifically anti-transgender — bills in statehouses in history,” said Wingfield, who noted that at least 240 anti-LGBTQ bills —most of them targeting transgender people—have been filed in state legislatures.
The United States, facing threats from authoritarian regimes abroad and from people attacking our power structures at home, is failing to address the biggest issues of the day, according to Sen. Mitt Romney, who identified the top three challenges as the rise of China, climate change, and the national debt.
Idaho Governor Brad Little rubber-stamped a strict abortion law modeled after Texas’ six-week abortion ban, even while advising that the measure was “both unconstitutional and unwise.”
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