Cancel Culture

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for hosting this Special Order on this very important and increasingly pervasive issue in our society: Cancel culture.

I hold very deep concerns about how this ugly movement is corrupting our youth and stands to seriously threaten the many core values shared by those in my district, those from north Georgia: altruism, patriotism, faith, and integrity, just to name a few.

While calling people out on their actions and/or behaviors is nothing new in our society, there is something inherently dangerous about fringe groups of people moving in a calculated manner to strip people of jobs, to strip businesses of revenue, and shutting down entire thought groups altogether, without a fair and just consideration being afforded to the targeted party.

Each of us has an understanding of what is right and wrong, just as we, as lawmakers, have our own ideas for what is good policy and what is not. We can debate and defend our personal opinions and sincerely held beliefs all we want, but when rights enshrined by the Constitution are at risk, I believe we have a duty to step up and defend those rights.

Whether we are talking about standing up for God-given, unalienable religious liberties, Second Amendment rights or First Amendment protections, I wholeheartedly believe that we should also be pointing to the truth within the Constitution.

It is easy to point to the Constitution as a blanketed rationale for countless issues. Both sides do it, and I find it does the public a disservice at large on two fronts, especially when one side just doesn't tell the truth.

For one, I believe blanketed statements pointing to enumerated rights inadvertently desensitizes Americans, especially our youth, to the importance of the Constitution.

Secondly, we are not challenging ourselves to push beyond the emotional sphere of these issues and to think critically and analytically to find the truth.

So we, as conservatives, need to stand up to cancel culture in two ways.

First, the Constitution has provided the basis for which the canceled individual and the ``cancelor'' engage in debate to begin with.

Second, we should be putting truth behind our decision to stand up in defense of those being targeted.

For example, I stand here today to oppose the progressive push to cancel biological genders, to cancel religious liberties, and to cancel the Second Amendment. Probably the most bold example of cancel culture that I have ever seen is that of Facebook and Twitter trying to cancel the sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump.

I stand in defense of biological genders because the truth is that women are biologically different from men. Young men should not have to compete against self-identified transgenders who are biological men. Moreover, the truth is that women are the bearers of life, and only women can give birth. Call them what they are. Moms are moms, not birthing people.

How ridiculous is that term, ``birthing people''?

How about H.R. 5, the Equality Act. That was another brazen attempt by progressives to cancel biological sex by normalizing transgender equality.

As I have said before and will say again, transgender medical treatment for children is child abuse, and any effort to normalize such treatments is a serious violation of the welfare and bodily integrity of our children. Allowing children to undergo life-changing alterations to their bodies should be a violation of the law, and the child abuser should be criminally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I oppose efforts by progressives to cancel religious liberties in their entirety. While I could speak at length about the various targets of cancel culture that fall under religious liberties, there is no better example than the Democrats' bill on the floor this week, H.R. 1065, that blatantly and knowingly leaves out protections for religious entities, as prescribed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Under this act, a religious employer could have to consider allowing an employee to take paid time off to have an abortion procedure. While religious liberty protections are the center of this cancellation attempt, the truth is that an unborn child is a living, human child, and we must protect it as such.

I stand strong against the Democrats' all-out attack on the Second Amendment, because it is no secret they are trying to cancel Americans' right to keep and bear arms in a piecemeal manner. The truth is that law-abiding gun owners are not the perpetrators of violent crimes. However, law-abiding gun owners will bear the brunt of the impact from this ploy. The facts are on the side of the law-abiding gun owners.

The Democrats know that and they just can't stand it. That is why Democrats are rolling out rules to ban guns piece by piece so that guns in the homes of Americans, as we speak, become outlawed over time. They do this under the guise of abolishing firearms made at home by individuals by calling them ghost guns.

The truth is that we see through this thinly veiled facade, and we will not sit by and allow them to cancel our rights.

Finally, I challenge all of my colleagues to not just stand up to the cancel culture in the name of the Constitution, but to do so by adding truth to the dialogue.

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