State Senator Mallory McMorrow gave a speech of four minutes to her colleagues in the Michigan Legislature. A Republican State Senator accused Senator McMorrow of wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” kindergartners, a charge right out of the QAnon cuckoo playbook.
Senator McMorrow replied with a powerful speech that has gone viral. Watch it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Linked to it from Robert Hubbell’s blog. Loved it! Very powerful, passionate, and honest.
I could listen to that speech all day long, proud of a fellow Michigander, and wish we would hear a lot more of that push back from our policy makers.
I learned on Twitter that State Senator McMorrow lives in Royal Oak, Michigan, which in the 1930s was the base of Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic race-baiting isolationist and fascist. She has redeemed her city.
Wow. Yes!!!
Interesting connection
For those who don’t understand Republican politics in the midwest, an article at Baptist News Global, 7-6-2021, is informative. The article, “The Jesus story is not a conspiracy theory, honest!,” provides Wake Forest Prof. Bill Leonard’s interview with Ed McBroom (R) who was on a call with John Eastman days before the insurrection ( Eastman is/was Pres. of the National Organization for Marriage, which was founded by Robert P George). The call also included hundreds of state GOP lawmakers. Mc Broom is the Mich. Senate Oversight Committee Chair.
After the election, Sen. Lana Theis (R) to whom McMurrow’s’ recent comments were directed and Sen. Tom Barrett asked in a letter to Mich. officials that they take action on alleged voter fraud. Mc Broom came to believe that the election results were truthful. McBroom fears “…the current status of American culture, American politics and American churches…the Jesus story is becoming dangerously intertwined with certain religio-political conspiracy theories.”
Leonard’s article cites statistics to show the magnitude of the problem in a nation like the U.S. that has politicized religion.
Awesome; just awesome!
Thanks for posting.
We need more people like McMorrow
State Senator Mallory McMorrow has class and courage. The GOP piece of garbage who accused her of grooming and sexualizing kindergartners is engaging in gutter McCarthyism, the lowest of the low. These GOP miscreants have no inner constraints, decency or honor, they are just deplorable and despicable. Just like Trump.
Back in the McCarthy era, the zealots called Democrats “pinkos,” “socialists,” and “Communists,” because they supported Medicare, Social Security, unions, and other forms of social progress.
Now, echoing the crazies of QAnon, they call them “pedophiles,” who are “sexualizing” small children, or teaching “divisive concepts” (like factual history) that allegedly makes white children feel uncomfortable.
it sickens me, D. Today’s GOP simply….just….makes crap up out of thin air, it’s…..I’ve never seen anything like this.
QAnon nuts are now mainstream GOP. What would Ike say?
And back in 1954, a McCarthy misstep caused the Senate, including rational members of his own party, to use the censure to distance themselves from this man, who had really done nothing more than the same thing Richard Nixon had done to gain his seat in the house a few years earlier. Modern republicans have no political gain to make by distancing themselves from outlandish falsehood.
Whoa! What a powerful and instructive speech! Worth hearing more than once. Thank you.
I almost skipped this one, because I live in Florida where there is a new stress inducing, [expletive] headline almost every weekday. But I’m glad I didn’t. Thank you.
Yeah. Governor DeWTF is running in Flor-uh-duh a bunch of pilot projects for the big show nationally come 2015.
Wow, that was a great speech, but Traitor Trump’s MAGA zombies are only capable of hearing about four words before their rambling thoughts drift and most if not all of them will only hear the first few words she said, before they zone out.
That is why the traitors slogan was MAGA, because he understands how dumb and ignorant and full of hate these saps are. They don’t have enough room in their leaky brains for more than a few words.
Make America Great Again is all their brains can hold, and they don’t even know what MAGA really means. For sure, they don’t know that MAGA means Make America Great Again for Trump and other frauds and liars like him so he can fleece zombies like the MAGA mob out of their money by repeating his BIG LIE and asking them for donations.
GREAT speech. Thank you, Senator McMorrow!!!
From The Washington Post:
“in recent weeks, Republicans have reverted to verbal and legal assaults on the community, sometimes employing baseless tropes that suggest children are being groomed or recruited by defenders of gay rights. The efforts ahead of the midterm elections are intended to rile up the Republican base and fill the campaign coffers of its candidates, without offering evidence that any Democrat had committed a repugnant crime…Coming nearly seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, the rhetorical attacks and attempts to pass scores of anti-LGBTQ legislation nationwide have sent a bracing signal of animus to the LGBTQ community and particularly to transgender youth who have been targeted in many states.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/20/republicans-grooming-democrats/
This is who and what Republicans and their “base” are.
Nice speech. Now for step 2. Why not a character defamation lawsuit? Why not sue every news outlet that published this accusation without pointing out that these charges were false?
Democrats will not win until they start to make Big Disinformation pay through the nose.
It takes soooo. long. Rhetorically, where does the Dominion voting machine case stand at this time?
Lawsuit still pending
It’s very difficult to win a defamation lawsuit if you are a public person
About Sen. Lana Theis (R) to whom Mallory was responding-
From the Mich. Catholic Conference site, 10-27-2021, “MCC offers its support for school choice legislation….”a step toward helping Mich. catch up to dozens of other states- including almost every state in the midwest….We commend the leadership of the Mich. legislature for passing Senate Bills 687 and 688 sponsored by Sen. Lana Theis and Sen. Tom Barrett.
And yet Michigan Senator Mallory M. is also Catholic (and married to a Jew)
When liberal Catholics and evangelicals exert political power in the name of their liberal churches that is equivalent to what their right wing brethren are doing, the issue can be seen in a different light.
I’d like there to be a stronger defense against politicized, conservative religion in North Dakota. As example, media reported the Mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota (conservative protestant) said in a Facebook post that he supported the Catholic Conference’s letter against UND’s gender inclusion policy. The Mayor wrote, “Compelling speech and forcing ideology on our students, our children, and our community…a sad day for my alma mater.” Btw- UND is a public university. Oh the irony, that the Mayor likely supports taxpayers forced to pay for student indoctrination in religious schools. Or, he would pretend that it doesn’t occur there because they have viewpoints with which he agrees.
Media hasn’t reported about the liberal Catholic Conference’s letter supporting inclusion because the bishops don’t have a public policy arm that champions LGBTQ, in matters of public policy.
Yearly, Tom Barrett introduces a resolution in the Senate to honor Catholic Schools Week.
Similar to Theis, Barrett sent out a message to voters. In texts, he wrote, “Your child” is scheduled “for gender reassignment surgery at 9:00 a.m.” It was followed by, Democrats are HELLBENT on destroying our faith, removing God from the center of our nation,….” (Daily Beast)
I’ve got 3 great ideas for McMorrow-
(1) Make a plan to increase gender and race inclusion on the Michigan Catholic Conference board, which currently has 12 men and 2 women.
(2) Make a plan to have Democratic views about LBGTQ, school choice and women’s rights receive equal space at the MCC site. And, get equal access for influence during MCC activities with the legislature and its leadership.
(3) Ask the MCC to reproduce her speech at the site and to post praise from Michigan Catholic clergy for it, clearly labeling her as a Democrat.
Blog commenters who would like the Michigan Catholic Conference to post Mc Morrow’s speech or a link to it, can contact them at info@micatholic.org
And the fight back begins!
Best wishes to Mallory McMorrow from the UK