Sen. Tim Scott ends 3rd GOP debate with transphobic send-off

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) made a quick transphobic comment at the end of the third Republican presidential debate tonight, saying, “If God made you a man, you play sports against men.” His opponent Vivek Ramaswamy also signaled support for anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” protestors at school board meetings elsewhere during the debate.

Unlike the transphobia-filled second debate, LGBTQ+ issues were barely mentioned in the third debate. Instead, moderators mostly asked the candidates about the conflict in Gaza, U.S. relations with China, restricting military aid to Ukraine, possibly banning TikTok on U.S. phones, reforming Social Security, fighting fentanyl and drug smuggling into the U.S., and other issues.

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The Republican primaries are not far away, and Trump’s victory seem’s all but certain.

However, at the end of the debate, a moderator asked Scott to explain why he and not Trump would be the party’s best choice to tackle the important issues facing the country. Scott said the country should “turn back” to Christian faith, even though approximately 122 million Americans across the nation aren’t Christian.

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“There is a crisis that is growing in our nation and that crisis is cultural and spiritual. We need a renewal a great awakening,” Scott said. “We should reject the Left’s valueless, faithless, fatherless society, we should turn back to faith, patriotism, and individual responsibility. We should stop choosing victimhood and start choosing victory. We should stop kneeling in protest and start kneeling in prayer.”

“There are basic truths that built this country,” he continued. “If you’re able-bodied in America, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you committed a violent crime, you go to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men. I do not just want to win the battle against Joe Biden. I want us to gather to win the war, the war for Christian conservative values that changed my life.”

Scott’s comment about athletes was very similar to a comment he made at the end of the first debate in late August.

At the end of that debate, Scott said in his closing statement, “I had the good fortune to have a mom who worked 16-hour days making sure we have food on our tables. She taught me that… if God made you a man, you play sports against men.” His line received applause from the audience.

In September 2022, Scott introduced the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act (the PROTECT Kids Act), which proposed cutting federal funding to any schools that allow transgender students to use locker room facilities matching their gender identity. 

“I introduced the PROTECT Kids Act to safeguard parental rights and ensure that children can learn in an environment free of indoctrination,” he said at the time.

Ramaswamy defends anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” groups

Earlier during the third debate, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said that the country’s leaders shouldn’t try to silence antisemitism with censorship. He alluded to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) ordering his state’s universities to disband the pro-Palestinian U.S. student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). DeSantis threatened to persecute and cut government funding to any institutions that allow SJPs to exist.

“Leadership means filling that void with purpose and meaning,” Ramaswamy said. “Dilute this wokeism and antisemitism to irrelevance…. We don’t quash this with censorship because that creates a worse underbelly. We quell it through leadership, by calling it out.”

Ramaswamy then alluded to an oft-repeated Republican falsehood that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had once referred to “parents complaining” at a school board meeting as “domestic terrorists.” In reality, Garland said that some violent threats made against school officials “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

The threats Garland referenced occurred at a time when Republicans and conservative groups encouraged angry protests at school board meetings by accusing educators of “indoctrinating” kids with concepts of anti-racism and LGBTQ+-inclusivity.

“[If you allow the government to censor unpopular views], soon they will say that if you show up at a school board meeting you’re a domestic terrorist,” Ramaswamy said during the debate.

Ramaswamy and DeSantis are the most anti-LGBTQ+ candidates seeking the presidential nomination. During the debate, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called Ramaswamy “scum” for mentioning her daughter’s use of TikTok after she had previously mocked him for using the video-sharing app to reach voters.

All five candidates in the third GOP debate are currently polling 44 percentage points behind the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, even though Trump hasn’t participated in a single debate this year. If Trump wins the first presidential primary elections early in 2024, he will likely win the Republican nomination and face Biden again, just as he did in 2020.