It was on this date in both 2018, as well as 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published its first profile of Mary Franson, who was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in, yup, you guessed it, in the 2010 Tea Party Wave. Had we to sum her up in but a few words, we would sum it up with “off-brand Michele Bachmann”. Her voting record represents that, what with votes across the board for any anti-choice legislation, a vote for a transphobic bathroom ban, votes against same sex marriage, and votes against raising the minimum wage during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation in at least a century. It isn’t just a matter of Franson being homophobic like Bachmann, either, she’s fine with outright hating all sorts of people who disagree with her… Democrats, mass shooting survivors, the poor… in fact, the only quote we can find about her sticking up for another person is Roy Moore, who she sees as a victim and not a racist old pedophile (more on that in a moment). So brace yourselves, and get ready for the deranged roller coaster that is Mary Franson…
- March 2nd, 2012: Franson sits down for a delightful video recording where she compares people being allowed to receive food stamps to “feeding wild animals”. Delightful rhetoric, there.
- April 5th, 2012: It’s one thing to be a Republican who doesn’t care much for environmental protection. It’s a whole other thing to be Mary Franson, and to make the ridiculous statement that “Earth Day is a pagan holiday”.
- July 18th, 2012: Mary Franson apologized for her earlier remarks about people on food stamps being like “wild animals”. It must not have been a sincere apology, because on this date, she repeated the same statement.
- September 24th, 2012: With Minnesota about to vote to change the state constitution to legalize same sex marriage, Mary Franson loses her damned mind, and begins not only rambling about the consequences it would have on public education (?), but rambles on enough to say that “homosexuality is not normal behavior”.
- January 31st, 2013: Franson begins her second term in office with a bang, beginning to spout insane and disproven conspiracies about links between vaccines and autism.
- April 9th, 2014: In a hearing over a bill that would offer anti-bullying protections to LGBTQ youth in schools, Mary Franson declares it “fascism”. Because fascist regimes have such a wonderful track record of supporting LGBTQ youth, right?
- November 8th, 2017: The 2017 off-year election went very well for Democrats, and a lot of history was made around the country, including several transgender candidates reaching office. One of them was Danica Roem, who became the first transgender member of the Virginia state legislature. Well, Mary Franson couldn’t resist getting on Twitter to weigh in, saying, “A guy who thinks he’s a girl is still a guy with a mental health condition.” Transphobia at its finest, to be sure.
- December 18th, 2017: There’s paranoid, and then there’s Mary Franson. A group of school students for Alexandria Area High School reached out to her on Twitter, to get her to meet with them, and she refused, saying, “It’s not a legislator’s duty to meet with a proudly partisan Democrat group.” Yes, she admits she refuses to talk face to face with a Democrat, even if they’re still her constituent.
- December 19th, 2017: I gets even wilder, after she took heat for this stance, she tried claiming her reason for not meeting with the kids would be that they would “falsely” accuse her of sexual assault, just like people did to Roy Moore to sabotage his campaign for U.S. Senate in Alabama: “A man’s life was destroyed in AL. 40 years ago he met with minors alone and they recently accused him of horrendous actions. In the world of we must believe every sexual harassment claim, I would think my approach is beyond reasonable. All it takes is one perceived action and my life is destroyed. The life of my family is destroyed. That is a risk I will not take.” Oh yeah, she’s nuts.
- March 28th, 2018: Just when you think Mary Franson couldn’t get any more disgusting, she decided to attack the survivors of the mass shooting at Parkland High School, and compare them to the Hitler Youth. Her history is wrong, as Germany did not enact massive gun control, that’s a right-wing myth… but it’s revolting that she attacked the victims of a mass shooting so callously.
- November 15th, 2019: Franson begins spreading lies about drag queen storytelling sessions at children’s libraries, claiming that there is pervasive pornographic content by such performers and drug use that make them “inappropriate” candidates to read to children.
