[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 19232]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 IT IS TIME FOR HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION

  (Ms. NORTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, last Friday a man named Edward Gay marched 
into a gay bar, killed a man, and wounded six others. He said he was 
tired of people making fun of his last name: Gay. No joke. He said he 
wanted to get rid of faggots.
  What happened in that gay bar last Friday was the exact equivalent of 
lynchings, common in the South in the first half of this century. This 
House never passed an anti-lynching law. And there was no hate crimes 
in Texas when James Byrd, a black man, was dragged behind a truck to 
his death. George W. Bush opposed a hate crimes law in Texas.
  James Byrd gave us all the reasons we ever needed for a Federal hate 
crimes law. Edward Gay's act of murder against gays is a mandate to 
pass the hate crimes act now. Bring it to the floor, Mr. Speaker.

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