Addison County Sen. Steven Heffernan, seen here being endorsed by our allegedly “moderate” governor, has done it again. He’s outed himself as a bigot, and is now trying to avoid the political damage that should result. Last time it was bravely ducking out of the Senate chamber when the roll was called for PR.4, which would add an equal protection clause to the state constitution. This time, he’s trying to explain why he’s not an ignorant bigot after making remarks on the Senate floor that were clearly both ignorant and bigoted.

And I do hope somebody asks Phil Scott if he has any second thoughts about the quality of his endorsements. Because Heffernan has revealed himself as an archconservative far away from our political mainstream in general and the politics of normally blue Addison County in particular.

The remarks in question were delivered on the Senate floor last Friday, May 15, and went unreported in the media until top Democrats started raising holy hell about them. Even now there’s been absolutely minimal coverage — an outrageous state of affairs when compared with the brouhaha over much milder remarks made by former senator Sam Douglass. Heffernan’s statements in the official record were far more toxic than anything posted by Douglass on Young Republican message boards.

The only story I’ve seen was tucked at the bottom of VTDigger’s “Daily Briefing” column for today, Wednesday May 20. The piece included Heffernan’s lame effort to explain himself, which beggars credulity. There’s been zero reporting from Seven Days or Vermont Public or even The Addison Independent as of this writing.

Brief reminder: Heffernan absented himself from the PR.4 roll call and claimed a touch of indigestion that came at what he acknowledged was a “convenient” moment. Hey, it would have been tough for him to cast the one and only “No” vote on PR.4 and then seek re-election in Addison County.

He’d also run away and hid from floor debate over PR.4, but he apparently had some deep, dark fantasies he just had to reveal in public. Last Friday, the Senate was debating a revision of Vermont’s animal cruelty law, and Heffernan addressed the chamber thusly:

In these crazy times, what happens if the individual identifies as an animal, having intercourse with an animal, how are the courts going to handle that?

And a follow-up question to that, [inaudible] Prop 4, if it does make it through the state, and I have a gender identity that I identify as a dog and i have sex with my dog, is this law going to affect me? 

For the record, after Heffernan spoke the immortal phrase “having intercourse with an animal,” someone in the chamber issued a hearty guffaw, and someone else said “Jeez!”

Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky was presenting the bill to the Senate, so the questions were addressed to her. She answered:

The bill that we are putting forward and the current law is quite clear, that any act between a person and an animal that involves contact with the mouth, sex organ, or anus of the person and the mouth, sex organ, or anus of the animal without a bona fide veterinary purpose will be a crime. 

But Heffernan wasn’t really interested in the bill before the Senate. He wanted to make an ignorant, bigoted point about PR.4. And he made it in spectacularly ungrammatical fashion.

Sorry, Mr. President, that does not answer the question. If I identify as an animal, I’m not a person, I’m identifying as this animal I’m having intercourse with. 

Um. Well, then. Vyhovsky reiterated her defense of the bill and added, “If you’re asking questions about a future Vermont Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 4, I cannot speak for the Supreme Court.” Heffernan wrapped up his “argument,” if that word doesn’t impart far too much dignity to his remarks, with this:

Not on Proposition 4, Mr. President, in the court of law as it stands now we are identifying genders as whatever we decide we want to be, and I like this bill. I’m going to vote for this bill. But I want to make this chamber aware of what’s coming.

And by “what’s coming,” he means the wild, ungodly world of socially acceptable bestiality that will inevitably follow the adoption of PR.4. Mothers, you’d best not take your kids to that cat café in Barre, because who knows what horrors they might witness.

If this line of “reasoning” seems faintly familiar, congratulations. It’s the same exact claptrap used decades ago by Christian conservatives to oppose marriage equality. As in, once-respected politician Rick Santorum claiming that marriage equality would inevitably lead to necrophilia, pedophilia, and good ol’ “man on dog.”

None of which has happened — well, no more than it ever happened before — in the decade-plus since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Heffernan may be stupid enough to proffer recycled, long-discredited far-right talking points in his official capacity as a senator, but he isn’t too dumb to realize that he’d stepped in it good and proper. When asked on Tuesday about his floor remarks, he insisted he isn’t transphobic (spoiler alert: Yes, he is) and was only concerned about people who might “use [PR.4] for the extreme,” including having sex with an animal.

Oh, and he repeated his claim that he hasn’t made up his mind on PR.4.

I tell you this much: Heffernan’s gobsmacking floor remarks invite further inquiry about his public record. He’s number 1 on my List of lawmakers who ran as Phil Scott-style fiscal conservatives but who show various signs of extremism on issues like reproductive rights, vaccines, the 2020 election, or equal protections for transgender folk. And at minimum, there ought to be more scrutiny of Heffernan by the somnolent watchdogs in our news media. The voters deserve to know. And if they know and they vote for him anyway, fine — but he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with concealing his more extreme beliefs. And Phil Scott shouldn’t be allowed to get away with enabling extremists to obtain positions of power and influence.