WASHINGTON — Congressional hearings are often boring, but Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., rarely descends into a personal attack on teachers union leader Randy Weingarten. House hearing In the wake of last week’s outbreak-related school closures, the issue continues to spark strong interests.
Those sentiments were expressed in a “very homophobic” way by the outspoken congresswoman, Weingarten told Yahoo News last Friday. The hearing took place two days ago, but she is still upset about the change.
During the hearing, Greene repeatedly claimed that Weingarten was not his “biological mother,” a reference to the fact that the 65-year-old president of the American Federation of Teachers is married to a woman named Sharon Kleinbaum, the world’s oldest rabbi. LGBTQ Synagogue. She sat behind Weingarten during the hearing.
“She was dehumanizing,” Weingarten said of Green.
Weingarten told Yahoo News that since November of last year, she has been forced to travel with a bodyguard after former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called her “the most dangerous man in the world.”
And the exchange with Green led to a flood of “disgraceful” emails, many of which were homophobic or anti-Semitic.
Weingarten was the lone witness at a hearing held by a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee to examine the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, opened the hearing by imploring members of both parties to focus on the topic at hand, which is whether the AFT has unduly influenced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on school reopening.
Previously made public emails show Weingarten requested revisions to the guidelines, which the influential union leader said was not off limits and was one of several inputs the CDC considered.
Republicans disagreed, but none more vehemently than Greene, a hard-right congresswoman with a penchant for debate.
Green said Weingarten shouldn’t have any say in reopening guidelines because she’s “not a medical doctor, not a parent, and certainly not a teacher.”
Weingarten noted that Kleinbaum has two daughters from a previous marriage, but that doesn’t seem to satisfy Greene, who has made issues of gender and race central to her legislative career.
“Let me tell you that I’m a mother, and all three of my children have been directly affected by the closing of the school – because of your recommendations – this is something you cannot understand,” Green said. (Her questioning of “biological” motherhood seems to disempower not only LGBTQ parents, but also those who parent through adoption or remarriage after divorce.)
“Ronald Reagan somewhere Foster parent “It’s giving conservatism a friendly face,” said former White House speechwriter David Kusnett. He wrote on Twitter Green’s statement.
The Congresswoman’s office did not return a request for comment.
Greaney produced a chart showing the rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses during the pandemic, a trend that spans the time spent on social media platforms.
“There’s one thing I agree with her about,” Weingarten said Friday, “and that’s that we need to do more to hold tech companies accountable, because algorithms and other things are making kids feel bad about themselves.”
Earlier this month, House Republicans approved this bill Prevent transgender girls from joining school-based sports teams reserved for women. For many Republican voters, transgender rights have emerged as a major culture war issue.
When Greaney’s relationship with Weingarten ended, she returned to allegations that the legislative union leader was not a real mother. “People like you must admit that you are not a political activist, but a teacher, a mother, a medical doctor,” concluded the diatribe.
Democrats tried unsuccessfully to strike Weingarten’s attack from the congressional record, but Wenstrup said House rules did not allow him to do so.