Political Quotes

“I rise in support of S. 2056, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. It has been noted on the floor that we are in an honorable succession here, from legislation that has very much defined this period in American national life. We begin with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in which the prohibition against discrimination based on color was extended to include discrimination based on sex. That was part of the calculation of opponents of the legislation. In the end, both prevailed, with large consequences to our society. I should think each of us, or almost all of us in the Senate, have been to one or the other of the national conventions of our parties, and have seen an extraordinary range of persons, men and women, black and white, Hispanic and thus-and-so. I do not know how many would recall how strikingly different this would have been, say 40 years ago, when I had the opportunity to be part of the Democratic Convention in the city of Chicago. Seeing photographs and films of it today, you see a different world. It has been changed, and for the better, and agreeably, by legislation enacted on this Senate floor. The time to extend the prohibition against discrimination based on sexual preference, as the usage is, is surely at hand.”