Seth Dillon, the CEO of the Babylon Bee, a satirical Christian website, is refusing to take down a tweet that labeled Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, who is Transgender, a man.
The siteās account received a suspension from Twitter for mocking USA Todayās decision to name Levine the āWoman of the Year.ā
The Beeās tweet read, āThe Babylon Beeās Man Of The Year Is Rachel Lavine.ā
Dillon tweeted on Sunday, āI just received this notice that weāve been locked out of our account for āhateful conduct.'ā
He explained that the account could be restored āin 12 hours,ā but āthe countdown wonāt begin until we delete the tweet that violates the Twitter Rules.ā
However, Dillon signaled that the Bee is not going to comply with the requirement.
āWeāre not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it,ā he wrote.
On Monday morning, Dillon shared a statement Twitter gave to media outlets that read, āThe account you referenced has been temporarily locked for violating our hateful conduct policy. The account owner is required to delete the violative Tweet before regaining access to their account.ā
āThey could, of course, delete the tweet themselves. But they wonāt. Itās not enough for them to just wipe it out. They want us to bend the knee and admit that we engaged in hateful conduct,ā he wrote.
Levine was confirmed in a 52-48 vote last year with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) andLisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) crossing party lines to vote for her nomination.
As The Washington Post notes, Levineās confirmation made āher the highest-ranking openly Transgender official in U.S. history.ā
āHer candidacy was widely opposed by religious rights groups, and some Republican critics also zeroed in on gaps in Pennsylvaniaās nursing home data that they said complicated the stateās response to the pandemic,ā it added.