Conservatives sink energy bill containing transgender provision

Last night, I reported on how House leaders allowed Democrats to insert a provision to the Energy-Water Appropriations bill allowing bureaucrats to discriminate against businesses that don’t adhere to the newly-minted national religion of transgenderism. The amendment, from Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY), would codify Obama’s executive order 13672 making transgenderism the law of the land. Pasted below this article are the names of the 43 Republicans who voted for that amendment, which would have codified language from Obama’s sexual identity executive order into law.* 

This morning conservatives struck down the amendment by voting down the underlying Energy-Water spending bill.  As we noted before, the bill to begin with was problematic because it increased spending and continued funding for a number of green energy programs.  Now that this bill would forever lay down the marker that Republicans are okay with making transgenderism a legitimate national religion codified into law, it was incumbent upon conservatives to vote it down.

Thankfully, 130 Republicans bucked party leadership and voted down the bill.  Click here for the list of 106 Republicans who still voted for this bill, which not only increased spending, it mandated Obama’s transgender agenda.  It was enough to defeat the bill because Democrats, who successfully got their message across with the transgender amendment, still opposed the bill.  Evidently, a bill that spends $2.8 billion more on the Department of Energy than the Pelosi-era Congress is not enough for them.

The eternal lesson that should be gleaned from this is that moral clarity matters.  In many respects, this vote is emblematic of the conservative predicament in elections.  It’s not better to vote for the lesser of two evils.  It is better in the long run for the American people to see that one side stands for moral and intellectual clarity.  Having elements of even the “conservative party” legitimize the most extreme, illogical, and licentious agenda of the Left damages our prospects of successfully defeating their agenda in the long term.  Thus, it was better to join with the Democrats and defeat the underlying GOP spending bill than “beat the Democrats” on spending (albeit still spend more than the Pelosi era Congress).

The message to GOP leaders both in legislative and electoral fights is this: if you live by Democrats votes you will die by Democrat votes.  The false choice of the lesser of two evils in terms of legislation or candidates is what has brought us to the brink of cultural and economic Marxism.

*

Amash(MI-03)

Brooks, S.(IN-05)

Coffman(CO-06)

Costello(PA-06)

Curbelo(FL-26)

Davis, R.(IL-13)

Denham(CA-10)

Dent(PA-15)

Diaz-Balart(FL-25)

Dold(IL-10)

Donovan(NY-11)

Emmer(MN-06)

Fitzpatrick(PA-08)

Frelinghuysen(NJ-11)

Gibson, C.(NY-19)

Heck, J.(NV-03)

Hurd(TX-23)

Issa(CA-49)

Jolly(FL-13)

Katko(NY-24)

Kinzinger(IL-16)

Lance(NJ-07)

LoBiondo(NJ-02)

MacArthur(NJ-03)

McSally(AZ-02)

Meehan(PA-07)

Messer(IN-06)

Paulsen(MN-03)

Poliquin(ME-02)

Reed, T.(NY-23)

Reichert(WA-08)

Renacci(OH-16)

Rooney(FL-17)

Ros-Lehtinen(FL-27)

Shimkus(IL-15)

Stefanik(NY-21)

Upton(MI-06)

Valadao(CA-21)

Walden, G.(OR-02)

Walters(CA-45)

Young, D.(IA-03)

Young, T.(IN-09)

Zeldin(NY-01)

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