Do Republicans have any decency?

The Republican Party has decided that attacking trans people is effective politics. Laws passed by the GOP-controlled Iowa Legislature remove discussion of gender from elementary schools, require schools to contact parents if trans kids come out at school, and prohibit gender-affirming care for minors. Tim Scott advertisements say trans women are threatening women’s sports. Kim Reynolds says that in Iowa, “we know the difference between right from wrong, boys from girls.”

Despite being a registered Democrat, I also know right from wrong. Republicans are wrong about the medical science of trans care. They are wrong about the threat posed to children by drag story hours. They’re wrong about trans people going into the “wrong” bathrooms.

Republicans are on the wrong side of history when it comes to LGBT rights and they’re wrong in the most shameful way possible: They seek political gain by reinforcing unjustifiable prejudices. They did it before with Lee Atwater’s “Southern Strategy,” which deployed coded language to appeal to racist southern Democrats. It’s no longer socially acceptable, to express prejudice against Black people, so they’ve made gay and trans people their new target.

Joseph N. Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” That is my question now for Republican politicians. They know better, and they will be judged harshly for their positions in the future. Let’s make that future now.

Kent Williams

Iowa City