Glenn Greenwald drew the ire of liberals on Twitter after praising Congressman Matt Goetz (R-Fla.) for helping to overturn Florida’s gay adoption ban while defending his vote to reject the codification of same-sex marriage in federal law.
Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who won acclaim for his reporting on the Edward Snowden affair, noted on Twitter that it was Goetz, who also served as a state legislator in Tallahassee, who helped pave the way for the legalization of gay adoption in Florida.
“In 2015, Florida banned same-sex adoptions,” Greenwald tweeted Wednesday.
“The bill in the lower house to repeal this ban was sponsored by then-state representative @mattgaetz. It passed the Senate only because he convinced his father, an influential Republican senator, that the ban was wrong.
The post praising Goetz was retweeted by the GOP congressman.
Greenwald then noted that Goetz was one of 157 House Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which would have prohibited states from discriminating on the basis of “sex, race, ethnicity or national origin.” against those who wish to marry.
In 2015, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The Democratic-led Congress is now eager to codify the decision into law after failing to do so with Roe v. Wade.
Yesterday Goetz was one of the House Republicans who voted against the codification of Obergefell (same-sex marriage). This NO vote was not due to opposition to marriage equality, but to his view that individual states have always regulated marriage, not the federal government.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 20, 2022
Last month, the nation’s highest court overturned the 1973 decision that legalized abortion — giving Democrats a boost to prevent a possible overturn of Obergefell by the bench’s conservative majority.
But Greenwald, who is gay, defended Goetz’s No vote, tweeting: “This No vote was not because of opposition to marriage equality, but because of his opinion that individual states have always regulated marriage, not the federal government .”
Greenwald noted that Democrat President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 statute that prevented same-sex couples whose marriages were recognized by their home states from receiving benefits enjoyed by heterosexuals couples under federal law.
Left-leaning Twitter users were furious. One wrote: “So Glenn Greenwald is a Republican after all. We were right.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “Pathetic as always Glenn.”
This holding is not threatened. Gay marriage doesn’t offend me as much as the insult to federalism through this legislation. (2/2)
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) July 19, 2022
When contacted by The Post, Greenwald criticized Democrats for “doing nothing to win over voters” and thus being left to “rely on increasingly hysterical and thoughtless Republican caricatures to scare voters.” .
Greenwald told The Post that “Democrats need to demonize Republicans as a Hitlerite threat” and that attributing “nuance or humanity to Republicans … is a deep threat to their singular electoral strategy.”
“I provided that nuance and those facts because my job as a journalist is to illuminate, not to propagandize on behalf of the Democratic Party,” he said.
Greenwald said he was forced to leave the United States and settle in Brazil, where he lives with his husband, because a 1996 law prevented the federal government from recognizing their marital status.
Gates voted against a bill that would have codified same-sex marriage into federal law. Bloomberg via Getty Images
The tweet defending Goetz drew a backlash from liberals on Twitter, one of whom wrote: “No one believes the ‘states’ rights’ bullshit, Glenn.”
Greenwald hit back, accusing the media of “corrupting your brain so much that you think Republicans want to mass kill gays in concentration camps.”
“If Goetz voted NO because he’s against same-sex marriage, why doesn’t he just say so? Why does he care to invent an excuse for federalism? And why did he get the adoption ban lifted?” Greenwald tweeted.
Goetz tweeted that the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision was “not in jeopardy” and that “gay marriage doesn’t offend me as much as the violation of federalism by this legislation.”
Greenwald also released the results of a Gallup poll showing that a majority of Republicans support same-sex marriage.
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