During a recent hearing of a House panel dealing with issues related to COVID-19, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insisted teachers union leader Randi Weingarten was not a mother, despite the fact that, well, she is. Weingarten is what she herself identified as a mother by marriage.
What an odd place to stake your rhetorical claim — the idea that stepparents or adoptive parents aren’t “real.” Weingarten was appearing as a witness before the COVID-19 panel when Greene, who is a committee member, made those remarks, prompting immediate outrage in the hearing. Greene was trying to deride disputed input from Weingarten on the subject of school closures related to the pandemic and also derisively referred to her as not really a teacher and not a medical doctor, although Weingarten never pretended she was actually a doctor.
“Adoptive mothers and adoptive fathers, stepmothers and stepfathers, are all real-life loving parents,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) commented Thursday on Twitter in response to footage of the statements from Greene. “What a grotesque insult to try to diminish their place, their meaning and their love because they are not “biological.””
Greene remains basically a face of the Republican Party. Footage of the Georgia Republican was even used in an announcement video accompanying Joe Biden’s recent roll-out of his expected campaign for re-election. It’s not just from Democrats, though. Greene is also publicly an ally of House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and close with Trump. Greene supported McCarthy through his struggles to secure his current role leading the chamber, and the California Republican has spoken supportively of her. It’s not the first time Greene has even gone after mothers. Amid difficulties with securing a supply of baby formula in the U.S., she also criticized the prospect of providing formula for the use of babies among migrants encountered by U.S. authorities, as though the government should have just let them starve.
Adoptive mothers and adoptive fathers, stepmothers and stepfathers, are all real-life loving parents. What a grotesque insult to try to diminish their place, their meaning and their love because they are not “biological.” https://t.co/nNnnbl7SYy
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) April 27, 2023
