- Adam Kinzinger criticized Marjorie Taylor Greene for putting up a binary gender sign across the street from Marie Newman’s office.
- Newman, who has a trans daughter, placed a transgender flag across from Greene’s office.
- Lawmakers are sparring about the Equality Act.
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Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger called out his colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter for putting up a gender binary number sign outside her office.
The sign opposite Rep. Marie Newman stood, said, “There are TWO genders: MALE AND FEMALE.” It also included the phrase “trust science!” within quotation marks.
Newman, a Democrat from Illinois, has a transgender daughter.
Greene tweeted a video in which she hung the sign, writing, “Our neighbor, @RepMarieNewman, wants to pass the so-called ‘Equality’ law to destroy women’s rights and religious freedoms.”
“I thought we’d hang ours so she can look at it every time she opens her door,” Greene said.
– Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) February 25, 2021
Kinzinger, a Republican against Trump, retweeted the video, saying he was sad and sorry and noting that Newman’s daughter is transgender. He said “this video and tweet represent the hatred and fame driven politics of self-promotion at all costs.”
“This shit has to end to get #RestoreOurGOP,” Kinzinger said.
Greene’s sign and video were a direct response to Newman, who first hung a transgender flag outside her office, directly across from Greene.
— Congressman Marie Newman (@RepMarieNewman) February 24, 2021
Newman tweeted a video in which she hung the flag saying, “Our neighbor, @RepMTG, tried to block the Equality Act because she believes banning discrimination against Trans Americans is ‘disgusting, immoral and evil.’
“I thought we were going to put up our transgender flag so she can look at it every time she opens her door,” Newman said.
The scientific consensus is that gender is a spectrum and many people exist between male and female identities.
Greene and Newman are faced with the equality law
Lawmakers were sparring over the Equality Act, a bill that House MEPs will vote on this week that would ban discrimination based on “sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.”
The Equality Act has widespread support among Democrats, but opponents believe it would infringe religious freedom. They have also argued that it would harm women by, for example, preventing them from having women’s-only sports, prisons and locker rooms.
But proponents of the bill say it would provide consistent non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.
If passed, the legislation would amend existing civil rights laws to include gender identity and sexual orientation as protected traits. However, it would also extend typical covered protections such as employment and housing to include a category called “public accommodations”, which includes retailers.
This extension is important for advocates of religious freedom because it could make it, for example, for a baker to deny that they are making a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it is contrary to their religion.
The bill has been tabled multiple times in the past and even passed in the Democratic-controlled House in 2019. It is likely that the Equality Act will be passed again in the House this week. However, the bill would require 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster, but at least one known GOP swing vote has filed an opposition.
Utah Senator Mitt Romney told the Washington Blade he would not vote to pass the bill, citing “protecting religious freedom.”
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