During a Wednesday hearing of a House committee that deals with lingering COVID-19 issues, member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) put Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in her rhetorical place over past hatred that she has expressed towards certain religious institutions outside her own obvious tradition of conservative — and Protestant — Christianity.
“Just in reference to what we just heard, that was incredibly appalling, transphobic, jokes about suicide — and of course these attacks on religion and on the response today have been really, really hard to hear and hard to see,” Garcia told listeners. “And I know we’ve been talking a lot about religion and our rights as Americans, and so I think it’s — we should probably review that a little bit.”
Greene, who completed her own remarks right before Garcia, had insisted on referring to a transgender woman currently serving in government as a man and mocked circumstances around suicide, snidely comparing teenagers taking their lives to specifically obese individuals suffering from COVID-19, as though even when someone commits suicide there are still political points to be notched at surviving individuals’ expense. She’d wanted a witness to essentially pick between those groups. As Garcia outlined his case, Greene tried to interrupt, claiming Garcia was attacking her character. It didn’t work, because after a moment the Congressman just kept talking.
Garcia highlighted past commentary from Greene that has been harshly critical of religious perspectives other than her own, which obviously makes it hard to take her seriously when she casts herself as some kind of ardent defender of religious rights. Greene said — in her own words — that Satan was “controlling” the Catholic Church. Garcia also highlighted how Greene has previously said Muslims don’t have a rightful place in U.S. government. “And so, these attacks being made by this member I find pretty disgusting, comparatively looking at the record of what this member has actually said,” Garcia summarized.
Check it all out below:
