[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

[[Page H2592]]

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.

                          ____________________