Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Jesus Would Be Maligned As ‘Radical’ By Today’s Congress
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used her Christian faith to ardently defend the rights of LGBTQ Americans during a congressional committee hearing on Thursday ― calling out the “bigotry” of those who use Christianity to discriminate against this marginalized community.
The lawmaker suggested that Jesus himself would be “maligned as a radical” by today’s Congress for his message of love and inclusion.
She said it strikes her that “if Christ himself walked through these doors and said what he said thousands of years ago ― that we should love our neighbor and our enemy, that we should welcome the stranger, fight for the least of us, that it is easier ... for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into a kingdom of heaven ― he would be maligned as a radical and rejected from these doors.”
Ocasio-Cortez was speaking at a Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on the ways the Trump administration has tried to undermine LGBTQ rights.
In opening remarks, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) said the Trump administration has used executive orders, amicus briefs in legal disputes, and agency guidance and regulations to roll back protections for LGBTQ people.
“The Trump administration has been working zealously to turn the government into an instrument of hostility and opposition towards LGBTQ rights across the executive branch of government,” Raskin said.
Last year, an NBC News and Columbia Journalism Investigation found that Trump’s Justice Department filed more amicus briefs in religious liberties cases in its first two years than the Obama and George W. Bush administrations during their first two years.
Raskin pointed to an amicus brief the Justice Department filed in support of Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Colorado bakery that argued it had a right, for religious reasons, to refuse to make customized wedding cakes for gay customers.
He also referred to a proposed Health and Human Services...
