[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24327]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            HATE CRIMES BILL

  (Mr. GOHMERT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, today we had a conference report after 
just voting to send the matter to conference last night on the Defense 
authorization bill.
  This authorizes what is being done in the military. On the backs of 
our soldiers is put the hate crimes bill. That is unbelievable. As if 
our soldiers don't have enough to do, we are going to put social bills 
like that on their shoulders and say, If you don't pass this to help 
the soldiers, then we are going to say, gee, you're against the 
soldiers.
  It's outrageous. They deserve better treatment. They deserve a 
straight-up vote on the Defense authorization without a hate crimes 
bill that will be, when coupled with 18 U.S.C. 2(a), the mechanism to 
muzzle ministers. I stood with dozens of African American ministers out 
here who knew they would be muzzled under this bill. It's not the right 
thing to do.

                          ____________________