- Rep. Max Miller said an anti-abortion activist’s religious tweet was “bigoted.”
- Miller, who is Jewish, took issue with the idea that people without faith in Jesus have “no hope.”
- Rep. Ilhan Omar later intervened, saying he was “harassing people who freely express their beliefs.”
Congress may be out of town for the month, but lawmakers are still finding time to argue with each other over various issues. On Tuesday evening, it was about religion.
It began when Elizabeth Marbach, the communications director for an anti-abortion group in Ohio, said on Twitter that there’s “no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.”
Marbach, according to her biography on Ohio Right to Life, believes “the only path forward in the fight against abortion is to allow the bible alone to define the issue and to reject the temptation to remove God from the conversation.”
“She believes that scripture alone is our sole authority and should be our ultimate guide in all things—including politics,” the biography adds.
But Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio — a former Trump administration official and one of just two Jewish House Republicans — took issue with the tweet.
“This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen,” he wrote. “Delete it, Lizzie.”
He suggested in a reply to Marbach’s tweet that he took issue with the idea that those who don’t follow Jesus have “no hope.”
“God says that Jewish people are the chosen ones, but yet you say we have no hope,” he wrote. “Thanks for your pearl of wisdom today.”
But then the conversation took another twist, when Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — one of just three Muslim members of the House — vocally defended Marbach.
“Stating the core beliefs or principles of your faith isn’t bigoted as Lizzie did, its religious freedom and no one should be scolded for that,” she wrote, accusing Miller of “harassing people who freely express their beliefs.”
One notable sub-plot: Miller was the primary sponsor of the GOP-led resolution that booted Omar off of the House Foreign Affairs Committee over past comments about Israel that many considered to be anti-Semitic.
“That’s her actual belief, you can disagree but it’s not bigoted for her to say what her beliefs are,” Omar later added. “That’s all.”