Fight for Transgender Rights Gets a Boost from the Newman-Greene Feud in Congress
Maybe Rep. Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, should send flowers or a fruit basket to her controversial fellow freshman, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
After all, Washington is a town in which publicity often translates into power and political donations, no matter which political side you’re on — and Greene, a Georgia Republican whose paranoid style of politics has earned such nicknames as “QAnon Marge,” brought a ton of attention to the liberal Newman.
A feud between the two newcomers broke out after a passionate speech by Newman on the House floor in support of the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“I’m voting yes on the Equality Act for Evie Newman,” she said in her speech, referring to her transgender daughter, “the strongest, bravest person I know.”
When Greene tried without success to block the bill’s movement through the House, Newman responded by erecting a transgender-support flag outside her office door and tweeted that it was so Greene “can look at it every time she opens her door.”
To which Greene responded with a sign. “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE,” it said. “Trust the Science.”
Oh, I thought, now she wants to “trust the science”?
That sounds more than a little snide coming from Greene, whose belief in science appears to rise and fall depending on whether she wants to believe it or not.
Her notorious spreading of false and bigoted conspiracy theories — including ugly notions that school shootings were staged and that a California wildfire was ignited by a space laser controlled by Jewish financiers — and suggestions of political violence against Democrats brought condemnation from both parties.
It also brought the loss of her committee assignments by a vote of 230-199 in early February with 11 Republican members voting with Democrats against her, which also brought censure and hate mail from some of their voters back home.
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