Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has advised protesters to dress appropriately, in response to a recent incident at a drag queen story time event at a California library.
Greene, a Republican representing Georgia’s 14th district, given the advice on her podcast on Friday, showing a tweet with a man who had been involved in the protest.
The man was wearing a T-shirt that showed what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon and the phrase “Kill your local pedophile,” which Greene said was inconvenient for protesters to dress.
Police believe a group of men who stormed the June 11 event at the San Lorenzo Library in San Francisco’s East Bay, may be members of the far-right group Proud Boys. The men are said to have shouted anti-LGBT statements.
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“This is one of the proud boys,” Greene said. “They started protesting a story time for drag queens and they disrupted the story time and now you can see the sheriff’s department there [is] opening a hate crime investigation against the drag queen story time protest.”
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, but no charges have been filed. The protesters are said to have shouted “tranny” and “pedophile” during the incident.
Greene focused on the clothing of the man in the photo in the tweet.
“Well, this guy and his t-shirt definitely make it easy to profile people who would go in and stop a drag queen story time,” she said.
“Obviously the shirt is something they can use to make anyone who wants to stop a drag queen story time look dangerous, maybe like they’re trying to kill someone, even though none of us would pedophilia in any way.” way and would definitely like to end pedophilia,” said Greene.
“But you can see the image problem here,” the Republican continued.
“So just like you would go in and you would want to look good for a job interview or you would want to dress appropriately if you wanted to, you know, everybody you want to look respectful to and you want people think good things about you,” Greene said, advising people to dress appropriately when protesting, attending school board meetings or meeting elected officials.
“I would advise you to dress appropriately,” she said. “Don’t give these people any reason to turn you into something you’re not.”
The drag queen story time event at the San Lorenzo Library was held for preschool age children as part of Pride Month.
Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California’s 15th District, who represents the affected area, denounced the disruption at a rally on Thursday.
“To the Proud Boys, what I’m telling you today is that you have nothing to be proud of for what you’ve done to children. It would be a compliment to call you boys for acting like babies,” Swalwell said. .
