[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6642]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO WADAHAWA SINGH GILL

  (Mr. McCLINTOCK asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I rise today in tribute to Rev. 
Wadahawa Singh Gill, who passed away last week at age of 87.
  For many years Rev. Gill was the spiritual leader of the Sikh 
community in Northern California. He was an amazing man who not only 
ministered to the more than 100,000 Sikh faithful in the Sacramento 
region. He made himself a bridge between the Sikh community and the 
general public.
  No religious group has suffered more at the hands of Islamic 
extremists than the Sikhs; yet because the turban is part of their 
traditional Sikh clothing, his parishioners have suffered greatly from 
public reaction after the attack of September 11.
  It was Rev. Gill who reached out across that gulf of misunderstanding 
and began a remarkable process of assimilation that has made 
Sacramento's Sikh community an integral part of interfaith life in 
Northern California.
  His spiritual leadership will live on not only in the many books that 
he published but through the example that he set for those of all 
faiths who share the Sikh tradition of peace, tolerance, and goodwill 
to mankind.

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