A gay Congressmember introduced a resolution to honor all mothers just in time for Mothers’ Day in response to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) statement that a lesbian adoptive mother is not a real mother.
Out Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced the “Honoring All Families” resolution last Friday. The resolution notes that there were 1.8 million adopted children and 320,000 foster children in the U.S. in 2021 and that many kinds of parents – including LGBTQ+ parents – want to adopt for a variety of reasons. It also says that between two and 3.7 million minor children have at least one LGBTQ+ parent.
The resolution holds that “a parent’s ability to contribute to their child’s growth and success is not defined by the circumstances by which they became a parent” and “families of all backgrounds and circumstances deserve to be recognized, respected, and celebrated.”
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The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.A press release on Garcia’s congressional webpage says that he introduced the resolution as a direct response to comments made by Greene several weeks ago when she was questioning – well, mostly berating – American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten at a House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis. Weingarten is an out lesbian and the mother of her and her wife’s kids through adoption.
“Are you a medical doctor?” Greene asked Weingarten. “Are you a mother?”
“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 teacher either,” Greene barked at Weingarten.
“You have no business advising the CDC what the medical guidelines were for school closures,” Greene said. “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.”
At the hearing, Garcia stood up for Weingarten: “You are a mother. Thank you for being a great parent.”
“She was just attempting to dehumanize me,” Weingarten later told Yahoo! News, calling Greene’s comments “very homophobic.”
“As an LGBTQ+ person myself, I know the positive impact chosen family and adoptive figures have on our community,” Garcia said in a statement. “With this resolution, we stand with these families and honor the incredible work they do to nurture, raise, and provide for their loved ones. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and they shape who we are in an immeasurable way. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments were gross, bigoted, and invalidated the thousands of loving LGBTQ+ and adoptive families across this country.”
Lead co-sponsors on the resolution include out Reps. Becca Balint (D-VT), Angie Craig (D-MN), and Mark Pocan (D-WI), as well as Reps. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) and Maxwell Frost (D-FL), who is an adoptee.
“My wife Cheryl, our four boys and our grandson are a family thanks in part to adoption,” Craig said in a statement. “I’m helping lead this push on behalf of every adopted mother in America, because I believe we should support and uplift all American families, no matter what Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Radical Right say.”
Since the House is controlled by the Republican party, it is unlikely to come up for a vote.
