A Conservative legislator in Maine spoke against boys competing in girls’ sports, and she posted the image of the State’s Class B girls high school pole vault champion—a boy competing against girls and who as a boy competing against boys the prior year who could do no better than fifth.
Maine’s Progressive-Democratic Party legislators promptly voted 75-70 to censure the Conservative, Congresswoman Laurel Libby (R, 90th District). Nor does Maine do an ordinary censure: under the Maine constitution, by censuring Libby, they have denied her any right to speak on the Maine House of Representatives floor, or even to vote on any legislation before the Maine House. As the WSJ editors noted, that also denies her constituents any representation, disenfranchising them.
Of course, Party knows that, too. Party politicians claim that speaking and voting would be restored to Libby were she to apologize. But for what would she apologize? Having done nothing wrong, apologizing would both be dishonest intrinsically, and it would be cowardly appeasement.
Libby is made of sterner stuff, and she has said she will not apologize.
Those WSJ editors also posited a warning:
Democrats should be considering whether they really want to go down the road of regulating posts on social media.
But that’s what the Progressive-Democrats have been doing for some years already—see Twitter and Facebook during the first Trump administration and throughout the Biden administration.
This is the censorship which we can expect to be inflicted nation-wide if Party ever regains control over our nation. Speech is free when Party permits it.