Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene says adoptive mom is “not a mother” while berating her in Congress

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Screenshot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) chewed out the gay president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, at a House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis hearing yesterday, and Greene went so far as to say that Weingarten, an adoptive mother, is not a mother because she didn’t give birth to her kids.

“Are you a medical doctor?” Greene asked Weingarten. “Are you a mother?”

Weingarten said that she is a mother by marriage to her wife. According to CNN, Weingarten has adopted her and her wife’s kids.

“What I’d like to talk about is your recommendations to the CDC as not a medical doctor, not a biological mother, um, and really not a teach either,” Greene barked at Weingarten.

“You have no business advising the CDC what the medical guidelines were for school closures,” Greene said, as if the CDC shouldn’t be hearing from the professionals affected by its guidelines. “The problem is, is people like you need to admit that you’re just a political activist, not a teacher, not a mother, and not a medical doctor.”

Out Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) stood up for Weingarten, calling a point of order.

“I just wanna make a note that the decorum of the attacks on the witness were unacceptable, that the gentlelady from Georgia just did,” he said. “And so it’d be nice if we didn’t attack the witnesses, particularly when making a decision about whether or not she’s a mother.”

Speaking to Weingarten, Garcia said, “You are a mother. Thank you for being a great parent.”

This isn’t the first time that Greene has said that a woman can’t be a mother because of her sexuality. Last year, Greene said that out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre can’t understand the baby formula shortage because she’s “married to a woman” and “doesn’t have children.”

Jean-Pierre and her wife, Suzanne Malveaux, have a daughter.

This also isn’t the first time that Republicans have attacked Weingarten – the leader of the second-largest teachers’ union in the U.S. – for not having biological children.

“Randi Weingarten is a joke,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Fox News in 2021. “Randi Weingarten does not even have children of her own. What in the hell does she know about raising and teaching kids?”

“In fact, that’s probably why she was perfectly fine to shut down schools for two years and force kids to wear masks, because she didn’t have to deal with it at home.”

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