No, I'm not kidding.
Michigan Republicans have officially resorted to totalitarian tactics in order to prevent two duly elected members of the Michigan House of Representatives from speaking on the floor of the Michigan House.
This isn't occurring in Iran, Syria, China, North Korea, Cuba, or any other country that has a long-standing track record of systematically violating free speech rights. This is occurring in the U.S. State of Michigan. You read that correctly.
Michigan State Representatives Lisa Brown (D-HD-39) and Barb Byrum (D-HD-67), who were duly elected to the Michigan House of Representatives, were banned from speaking on the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives. Brown, on her official website, stated, "Both Representative Byrum and I were gaveled down without cause yesterday while voicing our opposition to the Republicans' war on women here in Michigan. Regardless of their reasoning, this is a violation of my First Amendment rights and directly impedes my ability to serve the people who elected me into office. I was either banned for being Jewish and rightfully pointing out that House Bill 5711 was forcing contradictory religious beliefs upon me and any other religion. Or it is because I said the word 'vagina' which is a anatomically, medically correct term. If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it."
While abortion is, and always will be, a divisive issue in American politics, the fact that two duly-elected members of the Michigan House of Representatives were banned from speaking on the House floor for no valid reason by the Michigan House Republican leadership speaks volumes as to what lengths Republicans will go to ram their extreme right-wing agenda through every state legislature that Republicans control.
For the record, I self-identify as pro-choice, but I oppose taxpayer money being used to fund abortions except if the woman was raped, subjected to incest, needs an abortion to save her own life, or if the fetus has deformities. I'm not pro-life by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not staunchly pro-choice. I don't completely agree with the views of Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum, in fact, I have never completely agreed with the views of any person who has ever run for public office in this country, but when the Republican leadership of the Michigan House of Representatives is using undemocratic, unrepublican, and un-American tactics to silence opposition to part of their legislative agenda, I am not afraid to call them out for silencing their opposition.