Topic: CNSNews.com
Kristi Noem wasn't the only Republican governor CNSNews.com for hesitating about hating transgender people as much as CNS does.
After an instance in February in which he dared to suggest that Donald Trump shouldn't define the future of the Republican Party, things were going swimmingly for Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in pushing the hot-button right-wing agenda: In March, CNS published fawning articles about Hutchinson signing bils that effectively banned all abortion in the state and that "prohibits transgender 'females' (biological males) from joining real girls' sports teams at the high school and collegiate level." But when Hutchinson declined to sign a bill banning transgender treatments in the state because it was a :"vast government overreach," managing editor Michael W. Chapman lashed out in an April 6 article:
Arkansas's Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whose election was endorsed by the American Conservative Union and who holds an ACU rating of 84, vetoed legislation overwhelmingly passed by the State Legislature, which would have prohibited the use of transgender medical treatments, including sex-change surgery, on children under the age of 18.
The Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, HB 1570, passed the Arkansas House 70-22 and the Senate 28-7. Hutchinson vetoed the bill on Monday, April 5, much to the disappointment of conservatives.
[...]
The Family Research Council (FRC), which strongly supports the SAFE Act, issued a statement on Monday that said, "Asa Hutchinson appeared to yield to the sirens of the Left."
"The Arkansas legislature has demonstrated leadership and courage in the face of the Left's campaign of deception combined with spineless woke-ism of Corporate America," said FRC President Tony Perkins. "The legislature cannot stop now and deprive Arkansas's children of this much needed protection. Under the leadership of Rep. Robin Lundstrum and Sen. Alan Clark, the Arkansas legislature courageously passed the first-of-its-kind protection for minors from experimental gender transition procedures."
Interestingly, Chapman did not quote any right-wqing activist from the FRC or anywhere responding to Hutchinson's concerns about government overreach. He was, however, happy to add an editor's note to his article the same day noting that "The Arkansas Legislature voted to override Gov. Hutchinson's veto on Apr. 6, turning the SAFE Act into law."
But that wasn't the end of it. Two days later, an article by the mysterious "A. Kim" touted how Fox News' Tucker Carlson harangued Hutchinson, asking "why child chemical castration was a conservative value" and "They're not old enough to have sex, but they're old enough to be chemically castrated? How does that work exactly?"
That same day -- which, again, is two days after Hutchinson's veto was overridden, making it decidedly moot -- editor Terry Jeffrey devoted an article to Hutchinson's argument that the bill was a "vast government overreach." Jeffrey refrained from explicit editorializing, but one doesn't have to be a mind-reader, given CNS' rabidly anti-trans editorial agenda, that he didn't like how "Hutchinson claimed that vetoing this bill that would have prohibited transition procedures for minors was consistent with 'conservative philosophy'" and said that despite all the anti-trans legislation his state generated and he signed, "I want people in Arkansas and across the country to understand that whether they’re transgender or otherwise, that they’re loved, they’re appreciated and they make a part of our state and we want to send a message of tolerance and diversity."
This was followed by an April 9 column in which the FRC's Tony Perkins lashed out at "Gov. Asa Hutchinson's (R-Ark. ) cowardly veto of Arkansas' SAFE Act." Then came an April 14 column by Star Parker complaining that Hutchinson "raised ire from conservatives for vetoing legislation passed by the Arkansas state legislature that would have banned "gender-affirming" medical treatment for transgender minors," and that he "used former President Reagan to justify his thinking"; Parker insisted "It is hard to believe that, as Gov. Hutchinson suggests, Reagan's idea of limited government means standing aside as a tyrannical secularism sweeps through our nation and wipes out any remaining remnant of those traditional biblical truths."
It's clear that even the slightest deviation from the far-right anti-trans agenda will make even loyal Republicans like Hutchinson and Noem the target of hate not unlike they have unleashed at transgender people.
