It's been a month since Democratic state Reps. Justin Peterson and Justin Jones were expelled in the Tennessee State legislature over their involvement in disruptive protests on gun control on the House floor. They've been since reinstated, but continue to portray themselves as martyrs, thanks to help from fellow Democrats, all the way up to the White House. This now also includes Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), as our friends at Twitchy highlighted, who has also brought state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a biological male, into his pity party.
What's happening in Montana and Tennessee is IMPORTANT.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 3, 2023
The silencing of Zooey Zephyr, Justin Pearson, and Justin Jones is a red alert moment for democracy. The GOP agenda is now so deeply unpopular that their only way to implement it is to destroy and eliminate their critics. pic.twitter.com/vA0wdISnhv
In a nearly three-minute video, Murphy went on to explain to viewers in a patronizing tone what he claims the situation is.
As Madeline has been covering, Zephyr, who identifies as transgender, had sued lawmakers after being censured for remarks towards lawmakers who voted to ban so-called "gender-affirming care" for minors. "I hope the next time there's an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands," Zephyr had said. A Tuesday court ruling from Judge Mike Menahan for the 1st District Court of Montana ruled against Zephyr.
"Increasingly, Republicans in state legislatures who don't agree with positions that Democrats are taking on behalf of their politics, are silencing these critics," Murphy explained in some sort of word salad.
By way of explaining the bill that Zephyr was condemning in such insufferable terms, Murphy said that "Montana is considering another one of these bills to marginalize gay kids, transgender kids, non-binary kids," though he didn't go into detail how it would target anyone but children who think they may be transgender. "We saw it happen in Florida, now it's happening in all over the country," the senator continued, also now bringing Florida into the conversation.
In quoting Zephyr, who Murphy claimed was speaking "on behalf of those kids," the senator also stood by those remarks. "Because we know that when you marginalize gay kids and transgender kids, when you tell them that they aren't worthy, of being part of a community or a classroom, that increases their rates of self-harm, that increases the risk of suicide," he claimed.
To be clear, the bill in question that Zephyr was so strongly opposing would ban irreversible procedures on minors that may include genital mutilation as well as sterilization.
Not only did Murphy double down on Zephyr's remarks, he claimed that "Zooey Zephyr was just saying something, that frankly, a lot of people have said right here in the halls of Congress. Referring to Zephyr as using she/her pronouns, Murphy added that "she was silenced for it, she was kicked out of the chamber," at which point the closed captions of his remarks were highlighted in bold yellow.
"Her right to speak on behalf of her constituents from her by the Republican-led Montana legislature," Murphy ranted on, though the closed captions returned to normal at this point. "Sound familiar? That's exactly what happened in Tennessee when Justin Pearson and Justin Jones stood up and said that in the face of this slaughter of kids and teenagers in Tennessee and all across the country, we need to pass legislation that does something about gun violence. They were not just silenced, they were kicked out of the state legislature," Murphy reminded, not bothering to mention that they were reinstated.
What Murphy also left out was how protesters disgustingly held up seven fingers to also honor the suspect in the late March shooting at the Covenant School where six people, including three children, were killed. The suspect was transgender. Despite claims from the media and Democrats who tried to defend the protests, it amounted to an insurrection.
Despite referring to the examples of just two states, Murphy claimed "this is a trend all across the country" as, "instead of engaging with critics on a debate about the future of our gun laws about the way in which we should stand up for and protect transgender, LGBTQ kids. As he continued to claim that "instead, Republicans are silencing critics," his words again were bolded in yellow.
"Instead, Republicans are canceling Democracy," he laughably claimed. "This is a really, really disturbing trend, right? This is how you lose a democracy, is when people that disagree with their opponents, instead of engaging in that debate, cancel their right to be part of the debate in the first place," which is something that we've got to talk about."
Something tells us that the likes of Zephyr weren't looking for debate with such comments.
Murphy concluded his video by making clear "I'm proud of what Zooey did in Montana. I'm proud of what Justin Pearson and Justin Jones did in Tennessee, and we've got to raise up the very dangerous prospects for democracy when people like them get silenced by state legislatures across the country," again conflating the issue.
As our friends at Twitchy perfectly put it, Murphy comes off as quite the hypocrite, in that he "makes it clear that Democrats should be allowed to break the rules but if Republicans do it they are insurrectionists."
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