Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) just said something wicked to stepparents everywhere by implying that they aren’t really parents.
During the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis hearing Wednesday, the Republican congresswoman decided to grill Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, about her credentials.
“Are you a medical doctor?” Greene asked, followed by, “Are you a mother?”
Weingarten admitted she was not a doctor and was “a mother by marriage” and added that her wife was also at the hearing.
Greene then noted that Weingarten hadn’t taught a class since the 1990s, to which the union leader pointed out that she would be a guest teacher at Cornell University later in the year.
Greene grilled Weingarten about a tweet the union leader posted that supported Twitter suspending Greene, leading her to say that Weingarten was more of “a political activist” than anything else on her resume.
After Greene raged about Black Lives Matter, Weingarten delivering supplies to teachers in Ukraine and COVID-19 school closures, Weingarten tried to speak up in protest.
That set Greene off even more, and she railed against Weingarten for, among other things, not being a biological parent.
“I didn’t ask you a question. What I would like to talk about is your recommendations to the CDC, as not a medical doctor, not a biological mother, and really not a teacher, either. So, what you did is you advised the CDC?” Greene said.
The exchange inspired Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) to mention Greene’s unacceptable decorum and give Weingarten a moment to note that she is a mother whether Greene believes her to be or not.
He later posted the exchange on Twitter with a defense of Weingarten.
Of course, many people were aghast at Greene’s cruel comments.
Suggesting non-biological parents are not “real” parents is such an evil, heinous thing to say that the natural conclusion of reasonable people might be to wonder if Greene was misquoted or guilty of a misstatement.
But Wednesday’s rant wasn’t the first time she railed against non-biological parents.
In July 2022, Greene said children are in “great danger” because “traditional family values are being destroyed,” according to LGBTQNation.com.
“The idea that mom and dad together ― not fake mom and fake dad ― but the biological mom and biological dad, can raise their children together and do what’s right for their children, raising them to be confident in who they are, their identity, their identity is, you know, they’re a child made by God…” she said during a segment of her Facebook show, “MTG Live.”
You can see Greene’s full exchange with Weingarten below.