Frank Riggs: “I do want the opportunity to respond, since the previous speaker in the well I think just referred to me as being…”

“I do want the opportunity to respond, since the previous speaker in the well I think just referred to me as being ``mean-spirited'' and ``bigoted.'' I guess the proper thing to do is to consider the source. But I also want to respond by saying that I did not know the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) was a constitutional expert. I did not realize he was a legal scholar. Mr. Chairman, I do realize that he is reading from a letter, because I have a copy of the same letter. I can read from the same letter. I have a copy from the ACLU, the Washington office, which the gentleman, the renowned constitutional scholar, was just referring to regarding, ``The Riggs amendment is an unconstitutional bill of attainder.'' But right above that it says, in their opinion, ``the sole objective of the Riggs amendment is to punish San Francisco for attempting to use its municipal spending powers to help equalize health care benefits for married heterosexual couples and unmarried, due to State law, homosexual couples.'' That is kind of a convoluted way, I guess, of explaining their interpretation of my amendment. But it is the purpose of my amendment not to allow them to use Federal taxpayer funding to condition contracts to equate married heterosexual couples with, as they put it, unmarried homosexual couples.”