Toxic GOP Reps. Tom Emmer, Matt Gaetz, and Burgess Owens try to raise money off of LGBTQ+ and Reproductive Rights Advocate Britney Spears
Republicans like NRCC Chair Tom Emmer (MN-06), Burgess Owens (UT-04), and Matt Gaetz (FL-01) are trying to pinkwash their record of pushing for homophobic, anti-choice, and ableist legislation. Today, Teen Vogue called out Emmer, Owens, and Gaetz for raising money off the back of a woman who is suing for freedom from parasitic opportunists.
Republicans want a piece of the #FreeBritney movement? As Britney Spears would say, “You better work b****!” Read the highlights from “Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Is a New Cause for Hypocritical Republicans”:
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Gaetz, a man who is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for allegedly sex trafficking a minor and then attempting to obstruct justice in that ongoing investigation, seemed, well, out of place at a rally organized to support a woman who has personally equated her abusive conservatorship to the same crime for which Gaetz is under investigation. “The only similar thing to this is called sex trafficking,” Spears said of her conservatorship during recent testimony, according to a court transcript.
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As Spears’s case and the Free Britney movement gained traction in the mainstream media this summer, Republicans have attempted to co-opt the #FreeBritney movement in order to pander to Britney fans (a constituency historically composed of demographics of the electorate that the GOP struggles to attract: young people, LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color).
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As part of this effort, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), urged #FreeBritney supporters to share their cell numbers and emails so they could receive regular dispatches from the NRCC.
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The committee’s agenda, as well as the personal legislative records of Gaetz, NRCC Chair Tom Emmer, and other Republicans who have glommed on to the Free Britney movement, could not be more at odds with Spears’s plight, nor the confluence of women’s and reproductive rights issues that her conservatorship represents. But this glaring disconnect hasn’t stopped the party from taking further advantage of Spears’s situation, leveraging the public interest in the conservatorship scandal as a means to further their own agenda. It’s hypocritical, yes, but hardly surprising.
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When Gaetz invited Spears to testify before Congress about her conservatorship battle, he did so in cahoots with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Utah Rep. Burgess Owens, and Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, all of whom have similarly deplorable track records on issues of reproductive rights, as well as LGBTQ+ rights. None of them voted in favor of the Equality Act, which would provide explicit federal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Spears, a pop icon revered by the gay community, supports the legislation.
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So the NRCC using #FreeBritney messaging in hopes of building up their mailing lists rings rather hollow. After all, Emmer, the NRCC chair, once changed a bill’s language in order to explicitly ban gay and lesbian couples from using a surrogate mother and also voted against allowing public school students to learn about age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education. Earlier this year, he touted his A+ rating from anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List.
- The GOP’s track record on reproductive, LGBTQ+, and disability rights speaks for itself. Republican lawmakers may be calling for an end to Spears’s conservatorship, but it doesn’t appear to be because they see Spears as an autonomous person entitled to her own rights and happiness, regardless of her mental state. Wealth and celebrity aside, she’s only a woman in America, after all.
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