Maine Legislature Banned Lawmaker For Opposing Men in Women's Sports
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Should legislators be allowed to express their opinions--and the opinions of the people who voted for them?
Apparently not, according to the Democratic legislature in Maine. Some views are so heinous that they should never be uttered. Views like "men should not be allowed to play in women's sports."
This seems to run contrary to the longstanding belief in legislative speech and debate. Indeed, Rep. Libby is advocating for a change in policy position. Surely the Maine House of Representatives can accept advocacy for policy change?
Full brief here: https://t.co/dZP1VolCh4
— Eric W. (@EWess92) April 30, 2025
Representative Laurel Libby is a heretic--and in this case, I mean that word literally. Alphabet ideology has attained the status of religious doctrine on the far left, and the far left is in charge of the Democrat Party. You can say anything you want about gender issues, as long as it is precisely what the alphabet people want you to say .
Representative Libby will not comply because she challenged two bits of unquestionable orthodoxy: that men who say they are women are, in fact, women, and that Donald Trump is correct that the practice of allowing men into women's sports should be banned.
She must be crushed, along with the rights of her constituents.
In February, she publicly criticized Maine’s policy allowing biological males identifying as transgender to compete in girls’ sports. Rep. Libby posted on Facebook: “This is outrageous, and unfair to the many female athletes who work every day to succeed in their respective sports. . . . I will continue to vigorously oppose all efforts to allow male athletes to compete in female athletic competitions and to demand that President Trump’s Executive Order be enforced in Maine to ensure fairness for all female athletes.”
In retaliation for her social media post and comments about women’s sports, the Democrat-controlled House passed a party-line resolution censuring Libby. The resolution required her to “accept full responsibility for the incident and publicly apologize to the House and to the people of the State of Maine”—a requirement completely flying in the face of the First Amendment.
When Libby refused to apologize, House Speaker Ryan Fecteau barred Libby from speaking from the floor—or voting—depriving her of her vote and her constituents of their guarantee of equal representation under the 14th Amendment. While it’s certainly not unusual for legislatures to censure their members, it is quite unprecedented to deny a legislator her right to vote; only three other Maine legislators have been censured in the state’s 200-year history—and none has ever been stripped of her vote before. The same is true across the nation.
Libby's opinion is shared by the vast majority of Americans, and was the opinion held by almost every American (and liberal) not much more than five minutes ago. But that isn't the point that Libby is making in her appeal to the Supreme Court, nor is she fighting the right of the Maine House of Representatives to censure her.
What she is fighting is the antidemocratic nature of her "punishment" for not complying with the demand that she recant her opinions.
Luckily, we don't burn heretics at the stake, or even--yet--put people in reeducation camps. In these more civilized times, the punishment is censorship and loss of voting rights, both for herself and her constituents. By stripping Libby of her right to speak and vote--to represent her constituents--the Maine Democrats are doing what they do best: censor speech and oppress anybody who disagrees with them.
We saw this happen during COVID, when a vast government effort was made to shut dissenters up and change voting laws to ensure that our voices were swamped through illegal voting law changes--many of those changes have since been declared unconstitutional and were justified by declaring an "emergency." This move is intended to do the same thing using different means.
The District Court chose not to force the Maine legislature to reinstate the voting rights of Libby, so she has appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Unfortunately, her emergency appeal (it is an emergency because the Maine legislature is in session and hundreds of votes have already been taken without her participation) is going before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She gets to decide whether the case is granted emergency status.
Who knows what she will do? And, in a larger sense, the loss of one vote for a member of a minority party could be said to be of modest import in a nation facing many issues.
But the principle is not. Can a majority exclude entire swathes of the population from participation in politics because they hold the "wrong" views? That question is of vital importance.
When Democrats talk about preserving democracy, this is what they really mean. Sit down, shut up, and comply.
Democracy-Democratic style. You have the right to vote, but only in the way you are told.
This is, of course, a greater affront to Democracy than anything Trump ever dreamed of. And if it works, don't be surprised if Trump starts claiming the votes of Congressmen who oppose him shouldn't count.
And these are the same people who have been trying to gaslight everybody into believing Trump is the fascist.
Unbelievably, yes.
Laurel Libby should have worn a keffiyeh to hide her face and declared that Jewish men should not be allowed to play in women's sports. She would have gotten a standing ovation.
Wellllll......
It turns out when something sounds to outlandish to be true, it probably is. When we get more objective sources, we find out what really happened.
Let's repeat the outrageously shitheaded part of that, for those who missed it....
That's how a Facebook post becomes "an incident".
Now, I am on record on this very forum opposing the participation of any transgender people in women's sports. If you were born a woman and you still are a woman, you can play women's sports. In any other circumstance, you need to play in the open divisions.
That said. Let me repeat... this bitch INCLUDED A PHOTO of the student. So yeah, she was censured and yeah, she's barred. Not sure what the cyber-bullying laws are in Maine, but in Texas she'd be lucky not to be arrested.
So this isn't some case of looney lefties going overboard. They do that, but this isn't one of those times.
when has a legislature ever barred an duly elected, sitting representative from voting? I'd love to see the comparisons to that.
That's simply not true. You can absolutely post the name and picture of high school athletes without going to jail . Newspapers do it all the time.
Nothing simple about it.
Not for purposes of mocking them personally and not divulging personal information. They have the same protections other kids do. You can't post photos of Keelon Russell and call him gay or trans or WTF ever. Just like you can't post photos of some kid and talk shit related to his family's religious objections to having him vaccinated.
this bitch INCLUDED A PHOTO of the student.
The speaker of the house who won't let her vote posted photos of identified high school athletes on facebook also. No one cares.
hey have the same protections other kids do.
So obviously "including a photo" isn't an issue, whatsoever. Moreover, students' genders are often included in public reporting, since some sports are still divided by gender. "Missy wins the women's 500 meter." Go through a newspaper that reports on high school sports. So he's being treated just like any other student, which should be the goal.
Though the issue is a red herring, I'd also add the speaker used both first and last names in his facebook posts of pictures of high school athletes, Libby did not.
That's not what happened here, and you know it.
Of course he isn't. He's being singled out because of a condition for which he is receiving medical care. Even if you consider that condition a mental illness, you can't post about that shit.
You know what? it doesn't matter. The Legislature has no right whatsoever to not count the vote of an elected member. It can hypocritically censor her if it wants to, but the Speaker can't just decide not to count the vote of a sitting member. It's an insane affront to democracy and unprecedented.
The Democrats can either follow the rules to expel her, or her constituents can recall her if they believe her actions were egregious. There is no legal basis in the Maine constitution not to simply count her vote. None.
OK that's fair. They've overstepped. Assuming that's what they've actually done and it's not just more fake news hysteria.
But let's not make out like she just stated her opinion.
Before and after photos in fact. Same person, different names, competed as a male previously, competed as a female the next season.
His identity was well known. What about her freedom of speech, which is the real issue,
Hope Justice KBJ does the right thing
Yes. It's completely unprecedented to deny an elected, sitting legislator the right to vote over protected speech. Maine democrats can't follow the rules so they just invented one to silence her. This is what actual fascism looks like.
If that's OK, you could show before and after photos of a teenage girl who had breast surgery.
Freedom of speech has never been absolute. Privacy laws, anti-bullying laws, defamation laws, incitement laws... all restrict free speech.
There's no allegation by anyone that her posting of newspaper photos on facebook is illegal. She certainly hasn't been charged with a crime.
As I said, I don't know what cyber bullying laws are in Maine. In Texas, she would be really close, if not over the line.
As I also said, I fully support her push to have that sort of shit outlawed, but her behavior is wildly inappropriate and the least she should do is apologize to the kid and his family.
Thx for the clarification. I agree. She doxed the shit out of that kid.
Completely out of line.
Here's the nation's leading civil liberties protector (Foundation for Individual Right's and Expression) on the matter:
This is a legal slam dunk for Libby and an unprecedented, gross abuse of power by the Maine Legislature. The Speaker has zero authority to do this, and anyone who cares about the democratic process should be outraged. The precedent it sets, if allowed to, would allow any party with a majority of one in a legislative house to simply not count the votes of anyone they choose.