[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 118 (Friday, June 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2591-H2592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JUNE IS LGBTQ PRIDE MONTH
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise.
I am here for a special purpose, and I shall not deviate from the
cause that has brought me to this podium tonight, but I do assure you
there are things that have been said that at an appropriate time, I
will respond to.
Tonight, I rise to call to the attention of this House H. Res. 1014,
Encouraging the celebration of the month of June as LGBTQ Pride Month.
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the many original cosponsors of this
resolution. There are 60. I would like to thank the Human Rights
Campaign for the work that it has done to help us construct this
resolution. I would like to thank the Center for Transgender Equality,
the Equality Caucus, and Dignity Houston.
I rise tonight because 51 years ago, the Stonewall riots in New York
heralded in the beginning of the end of a shameful period in our
history, because 51 years ago, Madam Speaker, in June 1969, police
raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York,
causing a civil uprising and clashes between the police and thousands
of protesters.
Those historic events catalyzed a generation of activists who birthed
a civil rights movement for LGBTQ equality.
I rise tonight because I am an ally of the LGBTQ-plus community.
I rise tonight because I didn't get here by myself. There were people
of all stripes who made it possible for me to stand here in the House
of Representatives.
I rise tonight because 51 years ago being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or
transgender was illegal in most States in this country. Another way of
putting it is this: It was illegal to be who you were in this country.
Fifty-one years ago, no Federal or State laws existed to secure the
rights of lesbian and gay people to live openly in a relationship with
their partner.
Fifty-one years ago, no law precluded even the most overt
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Fifty-one years ago, our legal system afforded LGBTQ-plus persons no
protections under the law to live free from discrimination in
employment, in housing, in finance, in education, or in healthcare.
I rise tonight because 51 years ago, there were few openly gay
politicians or public figures in this country.
I am honored to say that the Honorable Barney Frank, whom I served
with in Congress, has been and continues to be a part of this
resolution. Each resolution that I have sponsored has honored the
Honorable Barney Frank, a Member of Congress from 1981 to 2013, and
recognized him as an honorary cosponsor of this resolution.
I rise because 51 years ago, being openly gay was a finable offense,
a crime, in many Federal agencies and a per se bar to obtaining a
Federal security clearance.
But today, thanks to the resolution and thanks to the revolution that
began this month 51 years ago at Stonewall, I am proud to say that
several openly gay persons serve proudly on my congressional staff. I
am proud to have them, and I am proud of the work they do.
Today, I am even more proud that as of last Monday, when the Supreme
Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, each member of my staff and
all LGBTQ persons in the United States of America now enjoy the same
legal protections against employment discrimination as all other
persons without regard to sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
In that historic 6-3 decision, the Bostock court resoundingly
affirmed that the prohibitions of Title VII bar all discrimination in
employment on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation or gender
identity.
Today, we recall the painful, bloody, and often deadly toll of the 51
formative years between Stonewall and Bostock.
Today, we remember each LGBTQ-plus victim of discrimination,
violence, and prejudice in the intervening years--51 years, I might
add--who were shut out, subjugated, or even killed.
Today, we mourn each one of the Black transgender women who have been
murdered in this year alone.
And today, with consideration of this Pride resolution, we continue
the tradition that I began as an original sponsor of Congress' Pride
Month resolution.
I am proud of how far we have come as a Nation in our struggle for
full LGBTQ-plus equality. And in this season of Pride, it is fitting to
celebrate that remarkable hard-won progress.
{time} 1830
But today, I also recognize that, although we have come a long way in
51 years, we still have far to go. Today, we must ensure that full
inclusion for LGBTQ-plus persons does not take another 51 years or even
51 weeks. It is now time that we must complete the march toward full
legal equality for all persons, without regard to sexual orientation or
gender identity.
Today, I call upon the Senate to take up and pass the Equality Act,
H.R. 5, without further delay. I am proud to be the original sponsor of
this resolution. I am grateful to all who have become original
cosponsors. It is not too late for persons to cosponsor the resolution,
and I would beg that persons would do so.
So now, having finished my comments on the Pride Month resolution, I
would like to step over to the next microphone.
Valuing Order and Law Instead of Law and Order
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise because now I must say it
was most difficult to sit in this House and hear some of the comments
made by my colleagues tonight. They seem to value statues above human
life.
All the vandalism and crimes that have been committed, I don't
support that, and I don't think that the protesters who were out there
peacefully protesting supported it either.
I don't think you ought to paint all protesters with one brush, just
as I don't paint all peace officers with one brush. I never conclude
that all officers are bad, but those who are bad ought to be punished.
I find it quite fascinating that my colleagues who came here and
spoke so eloquently tonight, I haven't heard them on the floor in prior
times talking about all of the atrocities being committed against
people of color at the hands of the constabulary. I just question why
is it that they don't come to the floor and stand up for people of
color.
I stand up for all people. It doesn't matter your color, your sex,
your sexual orientation. I have been on this floor consistently doing
this, but I don't see that from the other side.
I see them here for what I call order and law, not law and order, and
here is how that works: You have a President who goes before members of
the police community, and he says to them: When you arrest a person,
you don't have to be so nice.
Now, he is talking about a person who is in the care, custody, and
control of the police, and that person does not have to be treated so
nice.
He sent a message. That message was, you maintain order, do whatever
you have got to do, and I will provide the law to support you. That is
order and law.
I support law and order. I have an uncle who was a deputy sheriff. He
influenced my life. I am probably in Congress today because of words
that he spoke to me, so I support policing. I understand the necessity
to have persons who are going to assure us that we can be protected.
But what I don't support is a belief that peaceful protesters are all
somehow a part of a mob. You can peacefully protest and go to jail. I
know; I have been there. I was there with the Honorable John Lewis.
We were peacefully protesting, but we went to jail.
Peaceful protesters go to jail. Peaceful protesters get in the way.
Peaceful protesters disrupt. That is what protest
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is about. If people don't get uncomfortable, then your protest has
accomplished very little.
Dr. King was in jail when he wrote the letter from the Birmingham
jail. He was peacefully protesting, but he went to jail. It happens.
That is a part of the protest movement.
When I went out to protest, knowing that I would likely go to jail, I
had somebody to post my bail.
Peaceful protest does not mean that you are not disruptive. It means
that you have a message that has to be heard. As Dr. King put it,
protests can be the language of the unheard, peaceful protest
especially.
So I am here to say to my colleagues, I regret that you cannot see
the hurt that is being felt by people of color.
I don't understand why my tax dollars have to support a statue along
some thoroughfare of Robert E Lee. You can have it. Take it to a
museum. Tuck it away for whatever purposes you like. But you don't have
to impose it upon me.
We don't allow--or, more appropriately, Germany does not have statues
of Hitler in the public squares. And I refuse to stand by and allow
statues of people who wanted to keep my ancestors in chains, in
slavery, which is a nice way of saying rape, murder, kidnapping,
stripping babies from their parents, and sending the parents one way
and the children another. It is too nice a word for what happened to my
ancestors.
So, I am not going to celebrate them. I have never celebrated them,
and it is time to remove them.
I am not going to go out and pull one over and push it off into some
corner. But I don't see my colleagues helping with the means by which
they can be removed, and you take them and put them wherever you would
like to have them. I have no problem with your ownership of them, but
don't expect me to celebrate them and have my tax dollars take care of
them.
There was one in my congressional district, a Confederate soldier
named Dowling. It has been removed, and I am proud to know that was
removed.
So I rise now, as I close, to say just simply this: I love my
country. I love my country. I love it because of many of the good
things that have happened to me. But I also love it in spite of many of
the things that were not appropriate that have occurred. And I will
continue to love my country.
But I refuse to accept symbols of racism and hate. I will never honor
them, and I would badly have my colleagues take them to some other
place out of the public square.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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