[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7269]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBERING THE WORDS OF HARVEY MILK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Takano) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I, too, along with my colleague from 
California, Congresswoman Bass, express my sorrow for the victims of 
the terrible tragedy in Oklahoma, and I stand ready to work with my 
friends across the aisle to do all we can to alleviate the tragedy.
  Mr. Speaker:

       Somewhere in Des Moines or San Antonio there is a young gay 
     person who all of a sudden realizes that he or she is gay; 
     knows that if their parents find out they will be tossed out 
     of the house, their classmates will taunt the child, and the 
     Anita Bryants and John Briggs are doing their part on TV. And 
     that child has several options: staying in the closet and 
     suicide.
       And then one day that child might open the paper that says, 
     ``Homosexual elected in San Francisco,'' and there are two 
     new options: the option is to go to California, or stay in 
     San Antonio and fight. Two days after I was elected, I got a 
     phone call and the voice was quite young. It was from 
     Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the person said, ``Thanks.''
       And you've got to elect gay people, so that thousands upon 
     thousands like that child know that there is hope for a 
     better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow.
       Without hope, not only gays, but those who are Blacks, the 
     Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's: without hope, 
     the us's give up. I know that you can't live on hope alone, 
     but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, 
     and you, and you have got to give them hope.

                              {time}  1010

  Those words, Mr. Speaker, were spoken by Harvey Milk. It is with 
tremendous honor and gratitude that I enter them into the Congressional 
Record on his behalf and all of the ``us's'' in our Nation.

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