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WASHINGTON—Congressional hearings are often acrimonious, but they don’t fall into personal attacks like the ones Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga. Rarely. House hearings Last week, I spoke about pandemic-related school closures, an issue that continues to stir strong passion.
These passions were expressed in a “very homophobic” way by the outspoken Georgia congressman, Weingarten told Yahoo News last Friday. She was clearly upset by the exchange.
During the hearing, Green repeatedly stated that Weingarten was not her “biological mother.” This seems to refer to the 65-year-old president of the Federation of American Teachers, who is married to a woman named Sharon Kleinbaum, the rabbi of the world’s largest LGBTQ her synagogue. She sat behind Weingarten during her hearing.
“She was trying to dehumanize me,” Weingarten said of Green.
Weingarten told Yahoo News that she has been forced to travel with security since last November when former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called her “the most dangerous person in the world”. .
And she said her interactions with Green resulted in a flood of “vile” emails, many of which were homophobic or anti-Semitic.
Weingarten was the sole witness to a hearing conducted by a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee tasked with investigating the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the subcommittee, asked members of both parties whether the AFT had unduly influenced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for reopening schools on the topic at hand. He started the hearing with a plea to focus on.
Previously released emails showed Weingarten seeking revisions to the guidance, a request that influential union leaders said was not out of scope, and many that the CDC considered. It was one of the inputs.
Republicans opposed, but none had more ardent supporters than controversial far-right congressman Greene.
Green said Weingarten shouldn’t have had a say in the reopening guidelines because “she’s not a doctor, she’s not a biological mother, she’s not really a teacher.”
Weingarten points out that Kleinbaum has two daughters from a previous marriage, but that didn’t seem to satisfy Greene.
“Please be advised that I am a mother and all three of my children have been directly affected by school closures. This is due to your recommendations. This is something you do not understand. ‘ said Greene. (Her claim to “biological” motherhood seemed to invalidate not only the experience of LGBTQ parents, but also that of those who become parents through adoption or post-divorce remarriage.)
“Somewhere, Ronald Reagan, adoptive parents Conservatism-friendly face, he shakes his head.” Former White House speechwriter David Cassnett wrote on twitter Green claims.
The House of Representatives’ office did not return requests for comment.
Greene also produced a chart showing that gender dysphoria diagnoses increased during the pandemic. We believe this is a trend she attributed to the amount of time she spent on her social media platform.
“There is one thing I agree with her,” Weingarten said Friday.
Earlier this month, House Republicans passed a bill Prevent transgender girls from participating in school-based sports teams designated for womenTransgender rights have emerged as the number one culture wars issue for many Republican voters.
Once Green’s exchange with Weingarten ended, the MP went back to her claim that the union leader was not her real mother. “People like you need to admit that you are just a political activist, not a teacher, not a mother, not a doctor,” she said at the end of her diagnosis.
Democrats tried unsuccessfully to erase her attack on Weingarten from Congressional records, but Wenstrup said House rules would not allow them to do so.
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