One Kansas Democrat lawmaker told her Republican colleagues they were “full of s–t” after they voted Wednesday to ban males in female sports – and two other Democrats likened it to the crucifixion of Christ.
The pointed rhetoric came after the House and Senate both voted to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”
Fox News reported that Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee, told her colleagues on the floor – all but two Republicans and one Democrat – they were “full of s–t” for voting to override the veto and to enact the ban on biological males in female sports.
The chair immediately called the House, and apparently Ruiz, out of order.
Later, as the Senate was about to likewise override Kelly’s veto, a Democrat senator compared the vote to the crucifixion of Christ, while noting its sacred observance by Christians worldwide this week culminating in Easter Sunday.
“This is Holy Week,” Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes told her colleagues. “And it’s a week, if you are a Christian, Jesus was crucified. And what we are doing is crucifying a target of our population. And I vote no.”
Democratic Sen. Pat Pettey of Kansas City, who is Minority Whip, stood to officially concur with Sykes’ remarks.
While national headlines called the bill “anti-trans” – and Rep. Heather Meyer, D-Overland Park, wore a “Protect Trans Youth” T-shirt – lawmakers supporting the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act explained they were simply choosing to protect girls and women in sports.
Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, while expressing reservations about the bill’s effects on the youngest of grades, said she was voting for it because an “overwhelming majority” of her constituents told her that’s what they wanted.
The focus of the bill, she said, is on one thing: “We don’t want men playing against girls in high school basketball, or swim team, or volleyball, or whatever.”
Rep. Patrick Penn, R-Wichita, expressed his support of the bill by asking his colleagues to imagine if Angel Reese, the star of the Louisiana State University women’s national championship basketball team, had been booted from competition “because a man decides to suit up with females and go dominate the court.”
Penn, who is black, said that would deprive young black females of their opportunity to compete in sports.
In a 2020 video posted by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a white male Kansas House Republican and a black female Democrat colleague took to the lectern to plead for civility in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests and riots.
The post says the video “showed that civility remains an important ideal and that legislatures can be the perfect forum to start challenging conversations.”
