America’s media has been on a feeding frenzy ever since Montana’s transgender-activist-turned-state-legislator Zooey Zephyr created a stir at the expense of traditional decency and decorum in our state capitol.
First, here’s a useful history lesson about the manners and decorum that once prevailed in the Treasure State before the trans movement took over.
During the 2007 legislative session, I sponsored legislation to allow alternate certification of teachers by local school districts on a one-year trial basis. It drew the ire of the teachers’ union, whose members, an angry, rowdy bunch, packed the House gallery on Feb. 10. The presiding chairman simply issued them a warning—and then a second warning—that their disruption of House business wouldn’t be tolerated. When the teachers continued to misbehave, the chairman stated, “Will the sergeant-at-arms please clear the gallery.”
At that point, everyone in the room knew that the demonstrators had gone much too far. Several Democratic legislators stood up and appealed to the chair for leniency, with assurances that there would be no more disruptions. That was the end of it.
But we live in a very different time today. Compare that event with the 200 supporters of Rep. Zephyr who, with their prearranged chant, airborne garbage, and foul language, literally shut down the House of Representatives and had to be dragged off by law enforcement. Seven were reportedly arrested. They were there for the express purpose of stopping government from functioning. This wasn’t spontaneous. It was seemingly premeditated, with the full intention of providing the media with a national martyr for radical transgenderism.
How do we know this? For one thing, because Zephyr stood on the floor, facing the screaming mob, leading them while waving a microphone. To date, not one Democrat has condemned any of this.
Invocations are a time of solemn spiritual devotion, an appeal from one’s heart for help and guidance from God. Can anyone doubt that Zephyr’s cutting remarks were intended to mock the Christians in the room, and in so doing, to mock their God? To label Republicans as essentially pious hypocrites?
They’ve declared Open Season on people of faith, and the hypocrisy is only too apparent. Many of us have had enough. One Christian, former state legislator, Rick Jore, who served with me in 2007, put it this way:
“In my view, the specific words ... that are most offensive is the obvious intent to mock God and the solemnity of the privilege and act of prayer. It would be one thing to make the very serious claim that a vote on certain legislation would cause literal and ultimate ‘blood on the hands’ of the legislator for that vote. (Interesting that they won’t make the same application for pro-abortion votes.) What must be recognized is that by making the statement in the context of an act of prayer to Almighty God, the accusation moves beyond the mere vote of the legislator to the object of the prayer and the Source of just law.”
Can you imagine the uproar in the media if a conservative lawmaker and his or her supporters were guilty of anything approaching this? But conservatives, as respecters of individual faith and individual conscience, would never think those thoughts, let alone say those words or create that kind of mayhem.
We do indeed live in a time when widely accepted moral standards are now bifurcated, situationally and politically—a time when a Montana lawmaker can openly ridicule colleagues’ personal faith when they vote the wrong way, and instigate a riot that shuts down the legislature. We’re being told this is justified solely because Zephyr identifies as transgender, and customary House discipline is suddenly “anti-trans.”
Whatever happened to playing by the rules, which Zephyr committed to doing when sworn into office? Whatever happened to manners—or do manners and common decency only apply to one side of the political spectrum and one realm of religious faith?
