Florida GOP must censure lawmaker who called trans people ‘demons’ — and own the party’s bigotry | Opinion

So now, in Florida, transgender people are “demons,” “imps” and “mutants from another planet.”

Those would be shocking and disgusting words from anyone. But they didn’t come from just anyone. They came from the mouth of an actual elected member of the Florida House of Representatives. They were uttered during an actual official committee meeting in Tallahassee on Monday. And they were aimed at actual Floridians who had come to speak to the committee, as is their right in a representative democracy.

It’s a new, high-water mark for intolerance in Florida, but anyone who didn’t see it coming hasn’t been paying attention.

It happened during a House Commerce Committee meeting discussing HB 1521, a bill to prevent people from using bathrooms “designated for the opposite sex.” Rep. Webster Barnaby, a Republican from Deltona, launched into a biblical-sounding tirade from the dais in which he attacked speakers who had come to oppose the bill.

“The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” he said. “That’s right, I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.”

Many of the speakers were transgender Floridians and parents with transgender children.

Barnaby’s bigoted harangue veered into an actual fantasy world: X-Men movies, where hate and fear of mutants play central roles.

Of course, in the movies, there is an underlying theme of tolerance and a fight against prejudice. That was lost on Barnaby, apparently, who instead plunged on: “We have people that live among us today on planet Earth that are happy to display themselves as if they were mutants from another planet. This is the planet Earth, where God created men male and women female. I’m a proud Christian, conservative Republican.”

He concluded with this dark comment: “I’m sick and tired of this. I’m not going to put up with it. You can test me and try to take me on. I promise you, I’ll win every time.”

If someone from the public had come before the committee had said those same words, we bet security would have been called. And not without cause.

Some of Barnaby’s fellow Republicans had the decency to be appalled — and to say so out loud. Rep. Chase Tramont, a Port Orange Republican who supported the bill, called himself “a Christian man” but also said to the speakers that he “appreciated you coming up. You’re not an evil being. I believe that you’re fearfully and wonderfully made.”

And Rep. Bob Rommel of Naples at least thanked the people who spoke — before trying to wave away the stench left by Barnaby’s remarks by calling the bill “one of those sensitive issues” and saying that “sometimes we have to make a difficult decision.”

But more people, more Republicans, should have spoken out. And Barnaby’s apology later in the meeting — “I would like to apologize to the trans community for referring to you as demons,” he said — will do nothing to quell the flame of anger and hatred he fanned with his earlier words.

So here we are, with a Republican Party of Florida that apparently tolerates this sort of hate speech in a public forum by an elected official. Maybe the GOP will prove us wrong, and censure Barnaby, but we doubt it.

Recent history has shown what Florida is becoming. We’ve been subjected to a couple of years of piling on, with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature targeting trans people and Black history and free speech and school boards and books and sex education and universities and vaccines. Openly expressed hatred was always going to be the outcome.

Funny, though. The GOP is turning into the party of intolerance on so many things — until it comes to the bigotry of one of their own.

This story was originally published April 11, 2023 at 4:45 PM.