[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               WE ARE ALL MOURNING THE SENSELESS VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, regardless of our party affiliation or our 
congressional district, we are all mourning the senseless violence and 
loss of life in Orlando.
  As we learn the names and the stories of each victim, our focus now 
turns to how we respond, how we prevent another act of terror and hate, 
another tragedy to which this country has become far too accustomed.
  We face a multitude of shortcomings that this Nation must account 
for: access to guns designed to maximize death and destruction as well 
as the very real threat that violent extremism and homegrown terrorism 
pose to American lives. Two debates, it is worth noting, that this body 
has repeatedly failed to take up.
  In the days and weeks ahead, these issues deserve and demand our 
attention. But as we wrestle with the means by which terror was 
expressed, we cannot ignore the specific target it sought: the LGBT 
community.
  We often use words like ``indiscriminate'' when we talk about gun 
violence, referring to the terrifying randomness these tragedies can 
reflect, the sense that it could happen anywhere, anytime, to any of 
us. We cannot use the term ``indiscriminate'' here. While the details 
are still coming to light, all signs point to a crime motivated by 
hateful prejudice against a specific subset of our population.
  It comes at a particularly difficult time. This month is LGBT Pride 
Month, 30 days to celebrate what it means to be an LGBT American, to be 
true to yourself, to remember the blood, sweat, and tears that 
activists and advocates have shed for generations demanding better of 
their country.
  On Saturday afternoon, I walked through the streets of Boston for our 
Commonwealth's annual Pride Parade. It is one of my favorite events of 
the year--the celebration, jubilation, camaraderie, and energy that 
takes the city by storm. The first year I participated, I had the honor 
of marching with my predecessor, Congressman Barney Frank. The year 
after that, I walked with my former college roommate, Jason Collins, 
who had recently come out as the first gay professional athlete in a 
major U.S. sport.
  Standing next to Congressman Frank and Jason, I saw not only what 
their presence meant to that sea of supporters surrounding us, but what 
those supporters mean to them: an incredible wave of love and 
acceptance that they had to fight a lifetime to see--a statement of 
support from community and country that most of us get to take for 
granted.
  This past Saturday was no different. Love and tolerance emanated from 
every sidewalk, every storefront, and every street. Yet less than 24 
hours later, we woke up on Sunday to the devastating images of the 
Pulse nightclub: families and friends searching for loved ones; heroes 
carrying injured victims in their arms to a nearby hospital; strangers 
waiting in line for hours to donate blood; a community far too 
accustomed to violence and hate forced to confront a painful truth--
that for all of our recent strides and successes, this country 
continues to give discrimination against the LGBT community a home.
  While this body stands firmly united in heartbreak and horror over 
what transpired on Sunday morning, we cannot ignore the example that 
our actions--or inactions--have helped set. Our Nation was founded on a 
sacred promise of equal treatment under the law; yet, even today, we 
still fall short.
  When we allow some Americans to be fired from their job because of 
who they love, when we deny access to public accommodations because of 
who you are, when we fail to end legalized discrimination in businesses 
and hospitals and homeless shelters, when we set policies that treat an 
entire community as less worthy of our protection, then we cannot be 
surprised when that prejudice takes root across the country and rears 
its head with gruesome, gut-wrenching consequences.
  Bigotry begets violence. This is a lesson our country has learned 
time after time at tremendous human cost. Today, if we are serious 
about responding to hate, then we have to dismantle the policies within 
our Federal Government that give it cover.

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