Barney Frank: “in the combination of institutional incompetence and ideological extremism that has us contemplating this bill at this…”

“in the combination of institutional incompetence and ideological extremism that has us contemplating this bill at this hour with further important legislation to go, all kinds of stuff gets put in and the regular process gets degraded. I just want to call attention to one wholly irrelevant provision, irrelevant to the defense. The Boy Scouts of America have been found by States and cities to be violating their anti-discrimination policies with regard to both sexual orientation and religion, and some cities have said that they do not want anyone who fails to follow their State or city's policy getting free facilities. That I suppose can be debated or not as to whether it is right or wrong, but it does not seem to me that there is any argument for having it in the Armed Services authorization bill in a Congress run by supposed States rights conservatives, a provision that says to every city in America you will let the Boy Scouts use your facilities for free whether or not you think they violate the law against discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation. Now, that is probably going to be found unconstitutional, but I find that to be way beyond the scope of this bill and an example of the degradation of the legislative process that it is in here.”